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The Israeli military said it targeted militants operating in a shelter that had been a U.N. school.
Two Israeli strikes killed more than 20 people in separate parts of Gaza on Tuesday, one of which targeted a United Nations school turned shelter, according to Palestinian health officials in the enclave. Palestinian paramedics evacuated at least five killed and eight wounded at the school building, in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society emergency service.The Israeli military said it had targeted militants who had operated inside the building, which — like most of Gaza’s schools — has stopped operating as a school during the war, becoming a shelter for displaced people seeking safety. Hamas “systematically violates international law, exploiting civilian structures and the population as human shields,” the military said.
It was the sixth site that had been a U.N.-run educational institution in Gaza to be hit in just 10 days, according to UNRWA, the agency for assisting Palestinian refugees. Last Tuesday, at least 27 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike near the entrance to a U.N. school used as a shelter on the outskirts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Roughly 17 people were killed on Tuesday in a separate Israeli strike in Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel has designated a safer zone, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement. Those figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and could not be independently verified.
In a statement, the Israeli military said its aircraft had struck an Islamic Jihad commander in Khan Younis. It added that it was looking into reports that civilians had been wounded in the strike.
Since Oct. 7, Israeli aircraft have struck 37,000 targets in Gaza, laying waste to wide swaths of the enclave’s cities and towns, the military said on Tuesday. More than 38,000 people have been killed in the enclave during the Israeli military campaign against Hamas, now in its 10th month, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the Israeli military said that since the war began, roughly half of the leadership of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, has been “eliminated,” and about “14,000 terrorists eliminated or apprehended.”
It did not say how it arrived at that figure, or how it determined who was a terrorist. Hamas was estimated to have about 30,000 fighters before the war, but critics have accused Israel of labeling any adolescent or adult male killed in Gaza as a Hamas member. Over the weekend, Israeli forces bombarded an area of Mawasi with heavy munitions in an attempt to kill Mohammed Deif, the Qassam leader. Scores of Gazans were killed in the attack, but Mr. Deif’s fate remained unclear.
Last week, Israeli negotiators led by the country’s Mossad intelligence chief traveled to Qatar for meetings with mediators on a possible cease-fire. But hopes for a deal — which would also see the release of the remaining 120 living and dead Israeli hostages held in Gaza — have since dimmed.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel emphasized that he would adhere to Israel’s demands, despite growing international calls for an immediate truce. He said the Israeli offensive was continuing to push Hamas to make more concessions.
“Hamas is feeling the pressure,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “They are feeling it because we are striking them, eliminating their senior commanders and thousands of terrorists.”