Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, said Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and school among displaced Palestinians in the center of the area, killing 26 people.
Dozens of people were injured during strikes early Sunday morning at the Ibn Rashid School and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Mosque in Deir al-Balah, according to the Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants operating from “command and control” centers at the sites.
Footage from the mosque, verified by the BBC, showed bodies and blood on the ground amid the rubble, while footage from the school showed the building on fire and a man being pulled out on a stretcher.
Earlier, the Hamas-run civil defense agency said that the attack on the mosque killed 21 people and injured many others, AFP reported.
Sunday strike It is almost exactly one year since October 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Since then, 41,870 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 97,000 injured, according to the Health Ministry. It makes no distinction between civilians and fighters.
According to the United Nations, which uses data from Gaza’s health ministry and considers it reliable, 187 people were killed in Gaza from September 30 to October 4 alone.
In a statement about the attack on the mosque, Hamas accused Israel of “bombing citizens’ homes and tearing them down overhead, killing and injuring dozens”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that “a number of measures were taken before the attack to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information.”
The Israel Defense Forces accused Hamas of “using civilian institutions and the population as human shields for acts of terror”.
Hamas denies using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli forces began an overnight siege of Jabaliya in the north in response to what the IDF said was Hamas’s efforts to rebuild in the area.
The military said it struck “dozens of military targets” before and during the ground operation.
The Israel Defense Forces warned the public that northern Gaza “continues to be considered a dangerous war zone” and released a new map on Sunday showing possible areas for evacuation in the north.
It also said it had expanded the humanitarian zone in Mawasi, southern Gaza.
The mosques and schools attacked on Sunday are located in humanitarian zones.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had reopened two evacuation routes into the area from the north.
Israel does not allow international journalists from the BBC and other media organizations to independently enter Gaza, making it difficult to verify facts on the ground.
