Israeli strikes on Gaza kill at least 24 Palestinians

Army says it struck Hamas centre within school in northern Gaza

A Palestinian mourns over the bodies of relatives killed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al Balah, Gaza. AFP

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The Israeli military intensified strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, leaving at least 24 people dead and scores wounded, medical sources said.

Eight of those killed lived in tents for displaced people at Halima Al Sadiyya School in Jabalia in northern Gaza, Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported.

The Israeli army said it had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre … embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Halima Al Sadiyya School in the northern Gaza Strip”.

It claimed that Hamas used the site “to plan and execute terror attacks” against army troops and Israel.

Gaza's civil defence reported more deaths and injuries after an Israeli air strike later on Saturday on another school sheltering displaced people, in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza city.

The agency said its teams had reached the Amr Ibn Al As School, but did not immediately provide casualty figures.

The Israeli army said it had carried out a "precise strike" on a Hamas command and control centre at the site.

Earlier, a rocket hit a flat in Al Nassr neighbourhood in Gaza city, killing a girl and injuring others, medical workers said.

In central Gaza, rescue teams retrieved the bodies of eight people, including three children, who were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Al Husseiniya area west of the Nuseirat camp.

Israeli warplanes also struck a flat in Bureij refugee camp, killing four people and injuring 10 others, including children, medics said.

A man was shot dead north of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and another was killed by Israeli gunfire east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip .

Israeli forces also opened fire on a young man near the Karem Abu Salem crossing south-east of Rafah, killing him.

Israel's war on the Hamas-governed Gaza strip, which entered its twelfth month on Saturday, has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million and causing a hunger crisis, leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

The war began on October 7 last year when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 200 hostages.

Polio vaccination campaign

Both sides have observed daily pauses in fighting since September 1 to allow medical workers to administer polio vaccinations. The UN-led campaign was launched after an 11-month-old boy in Gaza was last month confirmed to have the first polio case in the occupied Palestinian territories since the disease was declared eradicated there 25 years ago.

The second phase of the campaign started in southern Gaza on Thursday after more than 189,000 children were vaccinated in central Gaza in the first phase. The campaign will shift to northern Gaza on Sunday.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UNRWA, said on Friday that nearly 355,000 children had been vaccinated against polio in Gaza's middle and southern areas.

“In the next few days we'll continue rolling out the polio vaccination campaign aiming to reach around 640,000 children under 10 with this critical vaccine,” UNRWA said in a post on X.

Juliette Touma, UNRWA's spokeswoman, said the agency was working with the UN children's agency Unicef, the World Health Organisation and local health partners around the clock and in a race against time to vaccinate every child across the Gaza Strip.

“These temporary pauses do not however replace our calls for a ceasefire. It’s long overdue. It’s time to reach a deal that would bring respite for the people in Gaza, release all hostages and bring in a steady flow of commercial and humanitarian supplies into Gaza,” Ms Touma told Reuters.

According to the WHO, a second round of vaccinations will be required four weeks after the first round.