At least 28 killed in Israeli strike on school sheltering displaced people: Gaza Health Ministry

WARNING: This story contains an image of a child with serious injuries from an airstrike.

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza killed at least 28 people, including women and children, on Thursday, while three hospitals in the north were told to evacuate putting patients' lives at risk, medics say.

The strike, which wounded 54 others, happened in the city of Deir al-Balah, where a million people have taken shelter after fleeing fighting elsewhere throughout more than a year of war.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had carried out a "precise strike on terrorists," who it said had a command and control centre embedded in the school.

"This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organization's systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law," the military statement said. Hamashas denied such allegations.

Khaled Al Sultan was in the area at the time of the airstrike. He said he helped pull bodies out from under the rubble.

"The scene is very painful. [It] is unimaginable, you can't find it in films," Al Sultan told CBC News.

Heba Abu Khousa's father and uncle were both killed in the strike. She was sheltering at the school with her family, who had all been displaced.

"I don't know what happened exactly, we just heard the sound of the airstrike," she said.

WATCH | Families describe aftermath of airstrike on school sheltering displaced:

Israeli airstrike kills, wounds dozens in central Gaza school shelter

3 days ago

Duration 1:33

Warning: Video contains graphic imagery. Families describe the scene at a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza after an Israeli airstrike hit, killing or wounding dozens of Palestinians Thursday. Some of those sheltering inside Rufaida School, in Deir al-Balah, were fleeing from northern Gaza, which they were told to evacuate as Israeli troops continue on with military raids in the area.

Israeli troops continue to expand operations in north

In northern Gaza, the Israeli military is pushing on with an offensive begun six days ago, when it sent its troops into Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

On Thursday, the military said it had killed at least 12 militants from Hamas and the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad who it said were operating from a command and control centrein what was previously a medical compound in Jabalia. It said large quantities of weapons and ammunition were stored at the site.

Nour Hamouda, a mother who was staying at the school shelter during the time of the attack, said there were no militants in the facility, asking why it was struck.

"We were sitting, all of a sudden we see the whole world flying ... arms and legs and children," she told CBC News, adding that the school houses the children's humanitarian group Terre des hommes,as well as World Central Kitchen teams who cook for the displaced.

Palestinian health officials say at least 130 people have been killed so far in the operation, which Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.

The military has told residents to evacuate an area in which the United Nations estimates more than 400,000 people are trapped.

The health officials said the Israeli military on Wednesday gave patients and medics 24 hours to leave the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals or risk being stormed, as happened earlier in the war at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Israel, which has not yet commented on evacuation orders for medical facilities, has said Hamas has command facilities embedded in the hospitals, which the group denies.

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, saideight patients mostly children were at risk inside the intensive care units, should the army force them to evacuate.

"Those children were injured with shrapnel all over their bodies, the upper parts and the brain. They are all in critical conditionand are hooked to oxygen systems," Abu Safiya said in a video message to the media.

"The hospital is also running out of fuel, and the occupation is refusing fuel to reach northern Gaza."

Hospital official appeals for help

Abu Safiya appealed to international countries to press Israel to allow medical staffers in north Gaza's three hospitals to continue to operate, saying, "Our message is a message of peace for the sake of those children."

"We urge the world to allow us to continue [working]and permit all things needed so that we can provide safe medical care in northern Gaza."

Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the UNOffice for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said an OCHA-World Health Organization team could not reach Kamal Adwan Hospital despite having secured a green light from the Israeli military.

"The team was forced to wait at the holding point for hours, and ultimately, the mission had to be aborted. And that's not an unusual practice," Rajasingham told a UNmeeting. "In September, less than 10 per cent of co-ordinated missions to the north [of Gaza] were facilitated by the Israeli authorities."

The essential conditions for effective aid operations are severely lacking or entirely absent,he added.

Israeli bombardment near Kamal Adwan has already caused some damage to the facility, medics said. Officials said they know of many fatalities lying on the roads outside the hospital because of Israeli fire.

The Israeli military told residents of Jabalia and nearby areas to head to humanitarian-designated zones in southern Gaza, but Palestinian and UNofficials say there are no safe places to flee to in the densely populated enclave.

The Thursday attackscome several days afterUN Secretary General Antonio Guterressaid he hadraised his concernswith Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about draft Israeli legislation that would stop UNRWAfrom working in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

WATCH |Guterres says draft law blocking aid agency UNRWAwould be 'catastrophe':

'UNRWA ... more than ever is indispensable,' says Guterres

5 days ago

Duration 0:37

UN Secretary General Antnio Guterres says banning UNRWA would be 'a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.' He's written to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an attempt to dissuade him from drafting legislation that would seek to block UNRWA operations in Israel.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UNPalestinian refugee agency UNRWA, told the Security Council, "Hundreds of thousands of people are again being pushed to move to the south, where living conditions are intolerable.

"Yet again, Gazans are teetering on the edge of a man-made famine."

Troops interrogating those leaving, making arrests: residents

Residents said Israeli armed forces have encircled Jabalia from all directions, and ordered them to leave through one corridor. They said troops were interrogating those leaving and making arrests, while anyone trying to leave via a different route gets fired at.

The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said they were fighting against Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets, and mortar bombs.

The Israeli military said it killed dozens of militants, located weapons, and dismantled military infrastructure in the north.

Israel began its offensive against Hamas in Gaza after fighters from the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

It has since also turned some of its focus to its northern border with an offensive against Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, in an escalation of the conflict that risks a broader war in the Middle East.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry says. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the enclave has been laid to waste.

Humanitarian pauses for polio vaccinations start next week

Meanwhile, humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Hamas war have been agreed upon to allow a secondround of polio vaccinations targeting 590,000 children under the age of 10 to start on Oct. 14, the head of the UNchildren's agency UNICEF said on Thursday.

"It is critical that these pauses are respected by all parties. Without them, it is impossible to vaccinate the children," UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

The first round of the polio vaccination campaign, which began on Sept. 1, reached its target of 90 per cent of children under 10 years of age, the United Nations has said. It was carried out in phases over two weeks during humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant groupHamas.

The World Health Organization confirmed in August that a baby was partially paralyzed by the Type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.