Israeli strike on Gaza school kills 28 as families gather to collect milk for children

More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in the north in five days where an Israeli siege is ongoing

Palestinians react after an Israeli strike hit the Rafidiah school housing displaced people in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza. AFP

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At least 28 Palestinians were killed and 92 injured in an Israeli air strike as families gathered to collect milk for infants at a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza.

Mostly women and children were killed in the attack on Deir Al Balah's Rafidiah school, which was sheltering Palestinians displaced from elsewhere in Gaza, according to the government media office.

Graphic footage from the site showed civilians collecting what remained of those killed, while others were shot at while trying to flee the scene.

Israel “chose the time of the bombing at the peak time when children and women were moving to get their daily food,” the media office said, corroborating witness reports of families waiting to collect milk for children at the time of the strike.

"The occupation army was aware that this school contained thousands of displaced children and women who were displaced from their homes and whose civilian neighbourhoods were bombed," it added. The office said 190 shelters have now been bombed by Israel in its year-long war on Gaza.

The Israeli army claimed the school was being used as a Hamas command centre.

More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza in five days as Israel continues a siege on the area, Palestinian authorities have said, with at least 700,000 people refusing to leave their homes and being displaced to the south.

Jabilia refugee camp has been particularly affected, with people trapped in schools and homes amid constant shelling and air strikes.

A boy watches a smoke plume rise while standing in the balcony of the Rafei school, being used as a displacement shelter, in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024. AFP

At least 150 people were killed across northern Gaza in the previous five days, the official Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday night, before three others were killed in overnight shelling on Jabilia camp.

Patients and staff at three hospitals in the area – Kamal Adwan, Indonesian, and the Al Awda Hospital – have all been told to leave the facilities by Thursday afternoon, Wafa reported, four days after residents across the north were ordered to flee south.

Israeli forces have already surrounded Kamal Adwan and opened fire at the facility, authorities and witnesses told The National on Wednesday. Camp residents have described families trapped in schools and homes amid constant Israeli shelling, with medical crews unable to reach the wounded. The Palestinian Red Crescent has also said it has received "urgent pleas" from people across the north but is unable to reach them.

The Israeli army launched a fresh ground operation on Jabilia on Sunday, hours after what local media described as the worst air strikes on the area in months. The camp, now surrounded by Israeli forces, was largely destroyed in a previous army raid in May.

Despite the danger, 700,000 out of 1.2 million people across northern Gaza and Gaza city refuse to be displaced to the south, according to official Palestinian data cited by Wafa.

The UN said around 400,000 people are trapped in the area, with Israeli attacks forcing UN-run schools to shut and services to halt – some for the first time since the war began.

The operation also endangers the second phase of polio vaccinations for children, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, raising fears previous efforts to stop the disease from spreading may be in vain.

Palestinians still in the area are facing increasingly difficult conditions – with the Israeli army preventing the entry of basic supplies into northern Gaza for five days, according to Wafa.

Elsewhere in Gaza, a seven-month-old baby was among five family members killed in a strike on Khan Younis, as intense attacks continued on Beit Lahia, Al Bureij, and Al Nuseirat refugee camp.

One person was also killed and several others wounded in a strike north-west of Gaza city.

The Israeli army also carried out raids in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday night. The Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades said the group's leader in the Balata refugee camp and several of its militants were killed by Israeli special forces in Nablus on Wednesday. Leader Issam Al Salaj and three fighters were killed in a "cowardly assassination" in the city, the group said.

Israeli forces arrested 22 Palestinians overnight, including two children, across the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa. More than 11,200 people have been arrested across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Gaza war began last October.