An Israeli air strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The ministry said the Dar al-Arqam school, located in the Tuffah district of north-eastern Gaza City, was hit in the attack. Dozens more were injured, it added, citing reports from a local hospital.
The Israeli military confirmed it carried out an air strike in Gaza City but did not mention the school. In a statement, it said it had targeted “prominent terrorists who were in a Hamas command and control center.”
The spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, said children and women were among the victims. He added that a woman who was heavily pregnant with twins was missing, along with her husband, her sister, and three children.
Footage from the nearby al-Ahli hospital showed children arriving with serious injuries, transported in cars and trucks.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the targeted site had been used by Hamas fighters to plan attacks against Israeli civilians and troops. It added that “numerous steps had been taken to mitigate harm to civilians”.
Overnight, the Civil Defence reported that at least 12 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya district. A video posted by the agency appeared to show rescuers pulling the bodies of two young children from the rubble of a collapsed building.
A witness, who asked not to be named, told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline programme that he had been sleeping when he was “suddenly shaken by a violent explosion and discovered that it occurred at the house of our neighbours, the Ayyad family.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on that incident, but on Thursday morning it issued fresh evacuation orders for residents of Shejaiya and four nearby areas, warning it was “operating with great force… to destroy the terrorist infrastructure.”
Similar orders were issued earlier this week for other parts of northern Gaza, as well as the entire southern city of Rafah and neighbouring parts of Khan Younis. The United Nations estimates that around 100,000 Palestinians have fled as a result.
Israel renewed its air and ground operations in Gaza on 18 March, following the collapse of negotiations over a second phase of a ceasefire and hostage release deal. A truce and partial hostage release had been agreed with Hamas in January but later stalled.
On Thursday, IDF chief spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin said the military campaign had “progressed to another stage”.
“We have expanded operations in the southern Gaza Strip with the goal of encircling and dividing the Rafah area,” he said. “In northern Gaza, our troops are operating against terrorist targets, clearing the area, and dismantling terrorist infrastructure.”
He added that in the past two weeks, Israeli forces had struck more than 600 “terrorist targets” across Gaza and “eliminated more than 250 terrorists”.
Before the strike in Tuffah, Gaza’s health ministry reported that at least 1,163 people had been killed over the same period. A UN agency said the dead included more than 300 children.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday evening that Israeli forces were establishing a new military corridor to cut Rafah off from Khan Younis. He claimed that continued military pressure would force Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, of whom up to 24 are believed to be alive.
However, Hamas said it would not accept Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal, which was reportedly coordinated with the United States. The group said it would only agree to the plan submitted by Qatar and Egypt, calling for a 50-day truce.
While the full details of that plan have not been made public, it is believed to involve the release of five hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from recently occupied areas, increased humanitarian aid, and negotiations to end the war. Israel is reportedly seeking a larger number of hostages to be released at the start of any new truce.
In another development, the IDF confirmed that its internal fact-finding body was investigating the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers near Rafah on 23 March, along with their burial in what a UN official described as a “mass grave”.
“We want to have all the facts in a way that’s accurate and we can also hold accountable people if we need to,” an IDF spokesman said.
A Palestinian paramedic who survived the incident challenged the Israeli account. Speaking to the BBC, he said that five ambulances, a fire engine, and a UN vehicle were targeted while responding to emergency calls.
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The military said the vehicles had been “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals and that a Hamas operative and “eight other terrorists” were among those killed. Only one name was provided.
But the survivor, Munther Abed, insisted that “all lights were on” before the vehicles came under direct fire. He rejected claims that Hamas used the ambulances for cover, stressing that all the emergency workers were civilians.
Israel launched its military campaign following the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Since then, more than 50,520 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry.
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