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An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 23 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health officials said.
ICU, solar power damaged in separate Israeli strike on children's hospital
Thomson Reuters
· Posted: Apr 23, 2025 9:47 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago
An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza on Wednesday killed at least 23 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health officials said.
Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms. There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.
Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings.
"We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire," said witness Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.
"People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred [people], charred children, and were walking and saying: 'Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.' What can we say? Dear God, only," she told Reuters.
Medics said at least 10 other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the enclave.
Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.
ICU unit, solar power damaged at children's hospital
On Wednesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli missile also hit the upper building of the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No one was killed in the hospital strike.
Gaza's health-care system is close to collapse due to an Israeli blockade on all supplies to Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March, when it relaunched military operations.
It says the blockade is aimed at pressuring the Hamas militants who run Gaza to release 59 remaining Israeli hostages captured in the October 2023 attacks that precipitated the war. Hamas says it is prepared to free them but only as part of a deal that ends the war.
The Health Ministry said many Palestinian victims of Israeli military strikes remained trapped under rubble and on the roads, as rescue teams are unable to reach them because of ongoing bombardments. The attacks have also hit dozens of bulldozers and machinery used to clear roads, remove debris and to carry out rescue operations.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had hit 40 "engineering vehicles" that were used for "terrorist actions," including Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Bodies remain under rubble, man says
Some of those heavy vehicles were parked on the road and others inside the garages of municipalities.
"For a year now, some people have still not been retrieved from under the rubble," said Gaza man Nasser Mohammed Nasser, standing close to the mangled skeletons of destroyed bulldozers and trucks in the northern town of Jabalia.
Even before Tuesday's Israeli attack, Palestinians had complained they were short of heavy machinery, accusing Israel of refusing to allow the equipment into Gaza in violation of the January ceasefire deal.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251, according to Israeli records. Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's offensive has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
With files from The Associated Press