At least 12 displaced Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on Gaza school | News on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip kill 27 more Palestinians, including 19 in the north, where a military siege has been ongoing for more than a month.

At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several others injured after Israeli forces bombed a school used as a refugee shelter in northern Gaza.

Gaza’s Civil Defense Authority said on Thursday the attack took place on a school in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City. Since the dawn, Israeli raids in Gaza have killed 27 Palestinians, including 19 in the north, where an Israeli military siege has been ongoing for more than a month.

Medics said at least 30 people were injured in the bombing at Shati Elementary Boys School, linked to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Earlier this week, Israel formally informed the United Nations of severing relations with UNRWA – the main humanitarian organization for Gaza residents.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said on Thursday that Israeli forces had been targeting densely populated homes and shelters in the northern Gaza Strip for weeks.

“UN shelters and school shelters are currently the only places where Palestinians stay and seek refuge because their homes have been bombed,” she said.

“How is anyone supposed to get along on this planet without food, without water, without medicine, without help and without constant bombardment and shelling? These Palestinians are trapped under endless fire, endless Israeli shelling and artillery bombardment.”

The Israeli genocide in Gaza, which began in October last year, has killed at least 43,469 Palestinians and injured 102,561 others – most of them women and children.

The war on Gaza began shortly after the Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics.

Evacuation orders

Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued a mandatory evacuation order for several areas in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, claiming Palestinian militants had fired rockets.

“We inform you that the designated area is considered a dangerous combat zone. For your safety, move south immediately,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X along with a map of the area northwest of Gaza City.

Palestinians in the north have been forcibly evacuated several times, creating a feeling of constant displacement. The Israeli army has also repeatedly attacked areas it has designated as so-called “safe zones.”

Israeli tanks advanced into Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, while drones broadcast evacuation orders that were also disseminated on social media and through text messages on residents’ phones.

A local resident told Reuters that after Israeli forces drove most of the Palestinians out of Jabalia, another area in the northern Gaza Strip, “they are bombing everywhere and killing people in the streets and in their homes to force everyone to evict “.

Palestinian officials say Israel is carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by blocking aid to Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon since the siege of the northern Gaza Strip began last month.

The Israeli military claimed on Wednesday it needed to evacuate Jabalia and begin evacuating Beit Lahiya so it could fight Hamas militants who it said had regrouped there.

The army also denied reports that it would not allow supplies to be delivered to that part of the enclave. It said 300 aid trucks from the United Arab Emirates had arrived at the port of Ashdod and were being sent to Gaza through the Beit Hanoon (Erez) border crossing in the north and the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing in the south.

But U.N. aid agencies have repeatedly said the amount of aid entering Gaza is not enough to meet the needs of Palestinians, who before the war saw an average of 500 aid trucks arriving daily.