GAZA/AMMAN -UNS/Reuters: Palestinians reported a deadly Israeli strike on a Gaza City area school serving as a shelter on Saturday, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to hear Arab demands for a ceasefire in a meeting in Jordan.
Witnesses said the strike hit Al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, where thousands of evacuees were living. At least 15 people died and dozens more were wounded, said Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, an official in the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.
Juliette Touma, director of communication for the U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), confirmed to Reuters that the U.N-run school had been hit. She said there were children among the casualties, but that UNRWA had not yet been able to verify the exact death toll.
“At least one strike hit the schoolyard where there were tents for displaced families. Another strike hit inside the school where women were baking bread,” Touma said by phone.
Reuters pictures of the aftermath showed broken furniture and other belongings lying on the ground, patches of blood and people crying.
“People were preparing breakfast, when suddenly the bombing started,” one man said in video footage obtained by Reuters.
“I found my two girls, one of them was martyred and her head was hit, the second was wounded in her leg… the other girl as well was wounded with shrapnel.”
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said another Israeli missile strike killed two women at the door of the Nasser Children’s Hospital. Several more people were injured, it said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either incident.
Israel’s ground forces encircled Gaza City on Thursday after stepping up a bombing campaign it says aims at wiping out Hamas, after the militant group killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel.
Gaza health officials said on Saturday that more than 9,488 Palestinians have been killed so far in the Israeli assault.
Israel last month ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City where it says Hamas militants are hiding in tunnels, and head to the south of the enclave.
It has continued to bomb the whole enclave, saying the militants are hiding among civilians, and many people have stayed in the north, where they say they now feel trapped.
The military said it would enable Palestinians to travel on a main Gaza Strip highway, the Salah a-Din road, on Saturday between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. (1100 GMT and 1400). “If you care about yourself and your loved ones, heed our instruction to head south,” it said in a social media post in Arabic.
US Special Envoy David Satterfield said in Amman that between 800,000 to a million people have already moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, while 350,000-400,000 remain in northern Gaza City and its environs.
Palestinians were searching in the rubble for survivors of an Israeli airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis.
“We are steadfast in Gaza, even if only one citizen is left, from there the state will start again,” 65-year-old Palestinian Harb Al-Barqy said.
