28 killed, 160 injured in Israeli bombing on school-turned shelter in N. Gaza: Hamas

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) — At least 28 Palestinians were killed and 160 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people in the Jabalia camp of northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
Fires broke out in the tents of the displaced individuals in the schoolyard because of the bombing. Some casualties were transferred to a hospital in northern Gaza, while ambulance teams were unable to reach the people in the targeted school, according to the Palestinian official news agency WAFA.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the Israeli Air Force conducted a “precise strike” on an operational meeting point for Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in northern Gaza.
The militants were operating inside a command and control center embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Abu Hassan School, the IDF said.
Dozens of militants were present in the compound at the time of the strike, said the IDF, which also published 12 names of those present.
The militants were involved in rocket attacks into the Israeli territory, as well as in planning and committing attacks against IDF troops and Israel in recent days, it claimed.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense in Gaza, said Thursday in a statement that the Israeli army is carrying out a “systematic destruction” of the Jabalia camp, using all means, including explosive robots, to empty the camp.
The Israeli army refuses to allow ambulances to reach the area and transport the casualties, while bodies of victims are still under the rubble, Basal said.
Meanwhile, Gaza-based health authorities warned Thursday in a press statement that newborns in the nursery of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza are facing a humanitarian disaster due to a fuel crisis and a shortage of medicines and medical supplies amid ongoing Israeli siege of northern Gaza.
Also on Thursday, Palestinian paramedics said they recovered the bodies of five people killed in two separate attacks on a house and a gathering north of Gaza City.
Palestinian sources also reported at least 17 deaths on Thursday in other places across Gaza. According to the sources, three people were killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a tent housing displaced people in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Medics told Xinhua that eight people were killed and dozens of others injured in an Israeli bombing on a house belonging to the al-Helou family west of Gaza City, while the Civil Defense Authority in Gaza said Thursday in a press statement that its team recovered the bodies of six Palestinians killed in a bombing in the town of al-Fakhari, east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that Israeli aircraft and artillery intensively bombed the outskirts of the Zeitoun neighborhood in southern Gaza and the Sabra neighborhood in the west, amidst gunfire from Israeli tanks.
According to the IDF, its troops have killed militants and destroyed infrastructure in the area of Rafah in southern Gaza over the past day, dismantled a “terrorist cell” and located a large number of weapons in northern Gaza, and dismantled military infrastructure and killed militants in central Gaza, including in the outskirts of Nuseirat and Al Bureij refugee camps. The IDF did not specify the number of the casualties.
Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 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 42,438, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Thursday. ■