Palestinians say Israeli attack kills 22 people in safe house, army says militants struck

By Dawoud Abu Alkas and Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) – Palestinians said an Israeli attack killed at least 22 people at a school for displaced people in southern Gaza City on Saturday, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a command center of the militant group Hamas.

Gaza's Health Ministry said most of those killed were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said the dead included 13 children and six women.

The military said it hit a Hamas command center in the former school complex and repeated allegations that the group was using civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies this.

Reuters footage from the scene showed blown-up walls, destroyed and burned furniture and holes in the ceiling of a room as people tried to save as much of their belongings as possible.

“The women and their children were sitting in the schoolyard, the children were playing, and suddenly they were hit by two rockets,” said a witness, Said Al-Malahi.

Some of the dead were wrapped in blankets and taken away on donkey carts, while ambulances transported the other bodies.

“I couldn't bear it. I didn't see a single injured person. It was all women and children. Let the Arab countries cheer, let them cheer and clap for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the United States of America,” said another eyewitness, Ahmed Azzam, bitter that neighbors in the region are not taking a tougher line against Israel.

PARAMEDIC KILLED

In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, four health workers were killed in an Israeli attack on the ministry's warehouses, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Rescue workers were unable to reach the dead or treat the injured, it said.

The Israeli military said in a statement that forces operating in Rafah since May had killed dozens of militants and destroyed military infrastructure and tunnel shafts in recent weeks.

Israel's demand to maintain control over the southern border line between Rafah and Egypt is a major sticking point in international efforts to achieve a ceasefire.

Hamas says it is focused on reaching an agreement to end the war and withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza, while Israel says the war cannot end until Hamas is wiped out. Another sticking point is the details of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

This war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli sources.

According to the local health ministry, more than 41,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel's subsequent attack on the enclave and almost the entire population of 2.3 million was forced to flee their homes.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; additional reporting by Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza, Adam Makary in Cairo and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)