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LONDON — An Israeli airstrike on a school building in central Gaza has killed at least 17 people, according to a local hospital.
Al-Awda hospital told AFP and Reuters that the strike on Thursday hit the Al-Shuhada school in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Hamas-run government media office reported the same death toll and said the school was being used as a shelter for displaced people.
Videos from the scene, verified by the BBC, show wounded children being carried out in the arms of men.
Israel said it had targeted a Hamas command center at the site “used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks” against Israel and its troops.
The government media office said “thousands of displaced people” were using the school as a shelter when the strike hit, “most of them children and women”.
Nine children were among the 17 killed, with more than 52 injured, the media office added.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, also told AFP that 17 people were killed and dozens wounded.
In recent weeks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has hit several buildings being used as shelters across Gaza, saying it was targeting Hamas personnel and infrastructure.
Israel does not allow international media organisations – including the BBC – independent access to Gaza, making it difficult to verify facts on the ground, so we rely on information from video footage and testimonies, as well as Israeli and Hamas official statements.
In northern Gaza, the IDF has been intensifying a weeks-long offensive against what it said were Hamas fighters who had regrouped there.
At least 650 people have been killed since the new offensive in the north began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The Israeli military said it was facilitating evacuations of civilians while it continued “operating against terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”.
But residents unwilling or unable to comply with Israeli evacuation orders are said to be living in increasingly desperate conditions, with food and other essential supplies running out.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that during the first three weeks of October, Israeli authorities permitted only four out of 70 coordinated aid missions to north Gaza.
The US warned Israel last week to urgently boost aid or risk having some military assistance cut off.
Cogat, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, said that trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies had been transferred to the north over the past week.
OCHA said earlier this week that humanitarian access remains restricted.
The final stage of an emergency polio vaccination campaign in the area has been postponed by UN agencies because of intense Israeli bombardments, mass displacement and lack of access.
The last phase of the two-stage rollout – prompted by Gaza’s first case of polio in 25 years, which left a baby boy paralyzed – was due to begin on Wednesday.
Almost 120,000 children in northern Gaza had been expected to receive a second dose of the oral polio vaccine. — BBC
