C T Online Desk: An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza that the military claimed was being used as a Hamas compound killed at least 30 people, including five children, according to local health officials.
The strike came after the military said it was launching new air and ground operations in central Gaza in an apparent widening of its nearly eight-month offensive, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. An international medical charity had reported soaring casualties even before Thursday’s strike.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah received at least 30 bodies from the strike on the school run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees — known by the acronym UNRWA — and another six from a separate strike on a home, according to hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital. Hamas-run TV had earlier reported a higher toll.
Mohammed al-Kareem, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, described chaotic scenes outside the facility. He said vehicles arrived one after the other, as distressed people rushed wounded people into the emergency department. Videos circulating online appeared to show several wounded people being treated on the floor of the hospital, a common scene in Gaza’s overwhelmed medical wards.
Later, he saw people searching for their loved ones among bodies wrapped in white shrouds in the hospital courtyard. He said one woman kept asking medical workers to open them up to see if her son was inside.
