Several Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike near Gaza school

By Mohamed Majid

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Several Palestinians were killed and others injured on Friday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a gathering of civilians near a school sheltering displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip.

An Israeli warplane bombed an area near Faisal School in the city of Khan Younis, killing and injuring several Palestinians, witnesses told Anadolu.

They reported that the school shelters displaced Palestinians from various areas in the Gaza Strip and that the airstrike “caused panic and fear among the people.”

Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defense agency said that five Palestinians were injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted agricultural land in the Al-Nusairat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 34,356 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 77,368 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide, and guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul