Hamas health ministry says more than 80 dead in strikes on refugee camp

GAZA STRIP: An official of the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip said more than 80 people were killed on Saturday in double Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp.

"At least 50 people" were killed in an Israeli strike at dawn on the UN-run Al-Fakhura school in the camp, which had been converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians, the official told AFP.

Social media videos -- which AFP was not able to verify -- showed bodies covered in blood and dust on the floor of a building, where mattresses had been wedged under school tables.

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A separate strike on another building in the camp on Saturday killed 32 people from the same family, 19 of them children, the health ministry official said.

The ministry released a list of 32 members of the Abu Habal family it said had died.

Jabalia is the biggest refugee camp in Gaza, where some 1.6 million have been displaced by more than six weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the two strikes.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) was also unable to offer an immediate reaction.

At the start of November, the Hamas government said more than 200 people had been killed and hundreds more wounded in Israeli bombardments on the Jabalia camp over three consecutive days.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to the October 7 attacks which Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians in southern Israel, and saw about 240 people taken hostage.

The army's relentless air and ground campaign has since killed 12,000 people, including 5,000 children, according to the Hamas government which has ruled Gaza since 2007.