GAZA STRIP: The civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said three air strikes killed more than 40 people within an hour across the war-stricken Palestinian territory.
Israel said it carried out two of the strikes that civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said killed at least 44 people and left dozens more wounded.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 17 people died and 26 were wounded close to a petrol station near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said five died at the UN-run Al Razi School in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The third strike was on “a gathering” of people near a roundabout in northern Gaza, according to the civil defence agency, which did not give a precise toll breakdown.
The Israeli military said “terrorists” used the Nuseirat school to launch attacks on its troops and that a Hamas “company commander” was the target of the attack at Al-Mawasi near Khan Yunis.
Al Mawasi is where more than 90 people were killed in a huge Israeli bombing raid on Saturday aimed at the Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif and one of his deputies.
Tens of thousands of people had sought refuge in a tent city in Al-Mawasi after Israel declared it a safe zone from military offensives in Gaza.
Mohammed Zaqut, Gaza’s director general of hospitals, told AFP that Israeli forces “carry out massacres in the Al-Mawasi area, which it claims is safe, knowing that any bombardment, even with a small missile, will kill dozens of people and cause many injuries because these are densely populated areas.”
The Israeli military said it was “looking into the reports stating that several civilians were injured as a result of the (Khan Younis) strike. The details are under review.”
At least seven schools have now been the targets of Israeli strikes in 10 days.
The Israeli military said after the latest strikes that “numerous steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance, precise munitions, and additional intelligence.”
It said Hamas “systematically violates international law, exploiting civilian structures and population as human shields for its terror attacks”.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 38,713 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
