At least 25 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza

by IANS |

Gaza, Dec 16 (IANS) At least 25 Palestinians were killed in two Israeli airstrikes targeting a school sheltering displaced people and a civil defence centre in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.

Marwan al-Hams, an official at Gaza-based health authorities, told Xinhua that on Sunday about 21 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school for displaced people in Khan Younis, while dozens of others, mostly women and children, were injured.

A Xinhua photographer at the scene witnessed bloodied bodies of the dead and wounded among the rubble of the top floor of the school, which belongs to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the attack, Xinhua news agency reported.

In central Gaza, four members of the civil defence, including a journalist, were killed in an airstrike targeting an emergency post in the middle of the Nuseirat refugee camp, sources said.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the civil defence in Gaza, accused Israel of committing a "heinous crime" against the civil defense teams. "The victims were carrying out their humanitarian and national duties," he told Xinhua.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a press statement that among the dead was a journalist named Ahmed Al-Louh, who worked as a photographer for Qatar's Al Jazeera TV. However, the Israeli army accused him of being a military operative for the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza.

In a statement issued later in the day, the Israeli army said its air force targeted a site in the Nuseirat camp used by "terrorists" to plan and carry out attacks against the Israeli Defense Forces.

Israel has been waging a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip has risen to 44,976, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Sunday.