At least 26 Palestinians, including 15 sheltering in a school, were killed on Wednesday in Israeli air strikes across Gaza, according to the enclave’s civil defence agency. The attack on the Al-Karama school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City marks another grim milestone in a conflict that has now lasted 19 months.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence, said Israeli aircraft targeted the school where displaced civilians were taking refuge. “Our teams retrieved 15 martyrs and 10 injured individuals,” Bassal told AFP.
Separate Israeli strikes reportedly hit a family home in Khan Yunis, killing eight members of the Al-Qidra family, including children as young as two. “They were sleeping and the house collapsed on them,” said Abir Shehab, a relative of the victims. “We die of hunger, we die of war, we die of fear, we die of everything, and the whole world stands by and watches us die.”
Three more people were killed in a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, bringing the day’s toll to 26.
The Israeli military has not yet commented on the strikes.
The escalating violence follows Israel’s resumption of its military offensive on March 18 after a two-month truce. Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, reported that at least 2,545 Palestinians have been killed since the offensive resumed, pushing the total death toll since October 2023 to 52,653.
On the Israeli side, 1,218 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Hamas’s October attack, which also saw 251 people taken hostage. Of those, 58 remain in Gaza, with 34 believed dead.
International condemnation of Israel’s offensive has intensified, particularly after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Gaza to be “entirely destroyed.”
Meanwhile, Hamas declared on Tuesday that ceasefire talks had collapsed, accusing Israel of conducting a “hunger war” through its ongoing blockade of aid. The United Nations has echoed warnings of looming famine and a humanitarian catastrophe if aid is not urgently restored.
