Arish Mujawar, Pune
According to the Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, at least 22 Palestinians, mostly women and children died as a result of an Israeli military attack on a school in southern Gaza City that was housing displaced people. Israel said that the target was a Hamas command headquarters.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that thirty people were injured in the attack in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City. The majority of the victims were children and women.
The Israeli army claimed to have destroyed a Hamas “command and control center” located within a property that was once a school, reinforcing charges that Hamas uses civilian structures for military activities. These claims are denied by Hamas.
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Israeli army has targeted numerous schools that house tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to evacuate their homes due to Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. According to UN estimates, the conflict has displaced 90% of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
Hamas has been accused by the military on multiple occasions of using Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, and UN buildings, to conduct operations. These conflicting reports of how hospitals and schools are used have been the main point of contention in the nearly year-long argument.
Israeli bombings in July killed at least thirty people who were taking refuge in a girls’ school in Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military claims that the operation was focused on a Hamas command center, which was utilized to plot assaults against Israeli forces and gather a huge stock of weapons.
Around 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed on October 7 when fighters led by Hamas assaulted southern Israel, sparking the start of hostilities. Out of the 250 people they kidnapped, a little more than 100 are still in custody. The Gaza Health Ministry says that at least 41,000 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israel’s attack in Gaza, without distinguishing between militants and civilians.
Additionally, on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that Israeli fire that targeted the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah neighborhood resulted in the deaths of five of its employees and the injuries of five more.
After dozens of people, including civilians, were murdered in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in Lebanon on Friday, tensions in the area worsened. Ahmed Wahbi, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s military arm, and Ibrahim Akil, the leader of the group’s special Radwan Force, were among those killed.
Shortly after Hezbollah launched one of its most severe bombardments of northern Israel in almost a year, there was an airstrike. Most of the missiles were deflected by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.