AFPAccording to local medics and aid workers, more than 50 people were killed in Israeli air and ground strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
He said the dead included children, a cameraman working for the Al Jazeera TV network and Civil Defense Agency personnel.
The Israeli military said it hit sites used by Hamas and its allied armed group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The deaths mean the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas has surpassed 45,000, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but it reported in October that identified casualties included 29,980 children, women and the elderly.
The figures are often disputed by the Israeli government, which says around 20,000 “terrorists” have been killed, but are widely accepted by UN agencies.
The war began when gunmen led by Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Many of those killed on Sunday were at a UN-run school being used as a shelter for displaced families in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Heartbreaking footage shows a bloodied scene on the third floor of Ahmed Bin Abdulaziz School, with the bodies of children apparently being exhumed.
“People were safe, staying in their homes after evening prayers,” Manal Tafish, whose brother and children were among the dead, told Reuters outside a local news agency. They were sitting, sleeping and staying in their places.” Mortuary
Medical experts said at least 13 people were killed, while a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said they had heard reports of around 20 deaths, many of them women and children. are
“It just doesn’t stop. It’s such endless pain and suffering that we’re going through,” Louise Wateridge told the BBC from central Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “conducted a precision strike against Hamas terrorists who were operating inside the command and control center inside the school”.
It also accused Hamas and other armed groups of exploiting civilians and using civilian shields as human shields.
Several more people were killed in a shelter at another school in the northern town of Beit Hanun, which the United Nations says has been under siege by Israeli forces for more than two months, medics said.
The United Nations said it was monitoring reports that more than 1,500 people were newly displaced after Israeli forces besieged and shelled the Khalil Aweida school.
The IDF said on Sunday that its forces “conducted a targeted raid on a terrorist meeting point in the Beit Hanoun area”.
“In collaboration with [Israeli Air Force]troops killed dozens of terrorists from both air and ground sides, and more terrorists were captured,” he added.
ReutersAnother attack targeted a Civil Defense building in the Civil Defense refugee camp in central Gaza.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmood Bisal said the director of Nusrat and Sheikh Rizwan centers were killed in the attack, along with two volunteers, one of whom was identified as Ahmad Bakr Al Loh. He further said that five more people were injured out of which three are in critical condition.
“The Israeli occupation has once again shown the world that there is no protection for humanitarian workers in Gaza and no respect for international humanitarian law,” he said. He added that 94 civil defense workers have been killed since the beginning of the war.
Ahmed al-Louh was a cameraman for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, which strongly condemned the “targeted killing” of its journalist by Israel.
It said Loh was covering a rescue operation by civil defense following an earlier strike on Sunday and that it came “a few days after his home was targeted”.
“The network calls on all human rights and media organizations to denounce the systematic killing of journalists by the Israeli occupation, the evasion of obligations under international humanitarian law and the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” it said in a statement. Condemn to be brought to justice.”
The IDF said the Civil Defense building was “used by terrorists to plan and carry out an imminent terrorist attack against IDF soldiers.”
“Among the terrorists killed in the strike was Islamic Jihad terrorist Ahmed Bakrul Loh, who was previously serving as a platoon commander in the Central Campus Brigade of Islamic Jihad,” he said, without providing any evidence. Accused.
Al Jazeera did not comment on the Israeli accusation, but Loh’s cousin Mahmoud told The Associated Press: “We are stunned by the statement of the Israeli occupation.”
“These claims are false and misleading to cover up this crime,” he added.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the war began.