Israeli strikes on school housing displaced and on market kill 48 in Gaza

CAIRO/GAZA: At least 48 people were killed on Wednesday in Israeli airstrikes on a school that housed families displaced by the conflict and which was located close to a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City, local health authorities said.

Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 33 people, including women and children, medics said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Reuters footage of the scene near the market showed wounded men being rushed away on the back of pickups and carts. Ambulances sped down shattered streets and a woman in tears carried a baby away from the scene, with two young children beside her.

“The blood was like a lake, oh my baby, pools of blood,” she screamed.

Ahmed Al-Saoudi said he witnessed the airstrike near the market. “People come to the market to get what they need if they can find it ... Neither the people nor the animals were safe. Neither the young nor the old.”

An image posted on social media showed what appeared to be a family of three - mother, father and son - lying dead on the street in pools of blood. The young boy was carrying a pink backpack. Reuters could not immediately verify the image that was purportedly from the scene near the restaurant.

Two Israeli airstrikes on another school, housing displaced people in Bureij camp in central Gaza, killed at least 33 people, including women and children, on Tuesday, local health authorities said. The Israeli military said it struck “terrorists” operating from a command center in the compound.

The strike smashed classrooms, destroyed furniture and left a large crater in the school campus. On Wednesday, survivors sifted through rubble to look for some of their belongings.

“What happened is an earthquake. The Israeli occupation hit a school housing children. They are children,” said eyewitness Ali Al-Shaqra. He said the school housed 300 families.

“Here is the building; it was razed to the ground. We cannot find the gas cylinder, the flour bag we had, the kilo of rice, or the meal we got from the Tukkiyah (community kitchen). Thank God we are left with the clothes we had on,” Shaqra added.

In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, residents and Hamas sources said Israeli forces, who have taken control of the city, continued to blow up and demolish houses and buildings.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said on Wednesday their fighters had detonated a pre-planted minefield targeting an Israeli armoured force east of Khan Younis in the south. They said they inflicted casualties, followed by mortar shelling of the area.