Palestinian officials say Israeli strike on Gaza shelter has killed at least 27 people
Deir al-Balah, Oct 10: An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in the Gaza Strip killed at least 27 people on Thursday, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas group hiding among civilians, without providing evidence.
Israel has continued to strike at what it says are Hamas members targets across the Palestinian enclave even as attention has shifted to its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and rising tensions with Iran. The military launched a large-scale air and ground operation against Hamas in northern Gaza earlier this week.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought, said the strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people, including a child and seven women. It said several other people were wounded.
An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances streaming into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces.
“We appeal to the world. We are dying!” one man screamed.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike targeting a Hamas command and control centre inside the school. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that were turned into shelters in Gaza, accusing Hamas group of hiding out in them.
Witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the strike occurred while school managers were meeting with representatives of an aid group in a room normally used by Hamas-run police who provide security. They said there were no police in the room at the time.
The Hamas-run government operated a civilian police force numbering in the tens of thousands. They largely vanished from the streets after the start of the war as Israel targeted them with airstrikes, but plainclothes Hamas security personnel still exert control over most areas.
Hamas has continued to launch attacks on Israeli forces and fire occasional rockets into Israel more than a year after its October 7 attack ignited the war.
Hamas-led group stormed into Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities in that attack, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel's offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
The Hezbollah group in Lebanon began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, drawing Israeli airstrikes in retaliation.
The fighting steadily escalated, and eventually boiled over into all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out waves of heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching a ground invasion. Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.
Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups across the region that refer to themselves as the Axis of Resistance against Israel. Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that its response to the Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” without providing further details, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
