Israeli strike on a school in Gaza kills at least 27 people, Palestinian
health officials say
[April 04, 2025]
By WAFAA SHURAFA and NATALIE MELZER
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 100
Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 27 or more
sheltering at a school, according to Palestinian medical authorities, in
a stepped-up offensive that Israel’s military said is intended to
pressure Hamas and eventually expel the militant group.
The bodies of 14 children and five women were recovered from the school
in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City and the death toll could rise
because some of the 70 wounded sustained critical injuries, said Health
Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi. More than 30 other Gaza residents
were killed in strikes on homes in the nearby neighborhood of Shijaiyah,
he said, citing records at Ahli Hospital.
The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas command and control center”
in the Gaza City area, and said it took steps to lessen harm to
civilians. Israel gave the same reason — striking Hamas militants in a
“command and control center” — for attacking a United Nations building
used as a shelter a day earlier, killing at least 17 people.
Hamas called the strike on the school a “ heinous massacre” of innocent
civilians.
The strikes came as Israel's military ordered more residents in parts of
northern Gaza to move west and south to shelters, warning that it
planned to “work with extreme force in your area.” A number of the
Palestinians leaving the targeted areas did so on foot, with some
carrying their belongings on their backs and others using donkey carts.
“My wife and I have been walking for three hours covering only one
kilometer,” said Mohammad Ermana, 72. The couple, clasping hands, each
walked with a cane. “I’m searching for shelters every hour now, not
every day,” he said.
Israel has issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza
ahead of expected ground operations. The U.N. humanitarian office said
around 280,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel ended the
ceasefire with Hamas last month.
The fresh evacuation orders came a day after senior government officials
said Israel would seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and
establish a new security corridor across it. To pressure Hamas, Israel
has imposed a monthlong blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that
has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle — a tactic
that rights groups say is a war crime.
Hamas says it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom
are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more
Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout from
Gaza. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave
the territory.
Another deadly day in Gaza
Overnight strikes by Israel killed at least 55 people in the Gaza Strip,
hospital officials said Thursday.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, officials said the bodies of 14
people had been taken to Nasser Hospital – nine of them from the same
family. The dead included five children and four women. The bodies of
another 19 people, including five children aged between 1 and 7 years
and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European hospital near Khan
Younis, hospital officials said. In Gaza City, 21 bodies were taken to
Ahli hospital, including those of seven children.
Later in the day, strikes killed four more people in Khan Younis,
according to Nasser Hospital, and another two people were killed in
central Gaza and taken to Al Aqsa Hospital.
The attacks came as the Israeli military promised an independent
investigation of a March 23 operation in which its forces opened fire on
ambulances in southern Gaza. U.N. officials say 15 Palestinian medics
and emergency responders were killed, and their bodies and ambulances
were buried by Israeli soldiers in a mass grave.
The military initially said the ambulances were operating suspiciously
and that nine militants were killed. The military said the probe would
be led by an expert fact-finding body “responsible for examining
exceptional incidents” during the war. Rights groups say such
investigations are often lacking and that soldiers are rarely punished.
The head of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Younes Al-Khatib, said
Thursday he believed some of the medics were still alive when they were
overtaken by Israeli forces. The organization's radio dispatchers heard
a conversation in Hebrew between medics and Israeli soldiers after the
ambulances had come under fire, Al-Khatib told members of the U.N.
Security Council.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told the U.N. Security
Council he was turning over a video he obtained, allegedly showing the
moments leading up to the Israeli killing of 15 humanitarian workers in
Gaza.
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Palestinians who were injured in an Israeli airstrike, are brought
for a treatment at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, on Thursday,
April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Mansour said the video shows that the aid workers, including eight
members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, were traveling in
emergency vehicles with the lights on at night to deconflict with
Israeli Defense Forces. But, Mansour said, the video “found on the
body of one of the martyrs,” shows that the Israeli army ambushed
the vehicle despite the emergency lights.
Israeli war plans for Gaza
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel was
establishing a security corridor across Gaza to pressure Hamas,
suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel
has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
Israel has also reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, a
military zone that separates the northern third of Gaza from the
rest of the narrow strip. Both that and another corridor, along
Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, run from the Israeli border to
the Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel plans to maintain overall security
control of Gaza after the war and implement U.S. President Donald
Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere
through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary
emigration.”
Palestinians view the proposal as expulsion from their homeland, and
human rights experts say the plan would likely violate international
law.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians,
according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those
killed are civilians or combatants but says more than half of those
killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around
20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has left most of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced
around 90% of the population.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on
Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and
taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in
ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living
hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.
Netanyahu visits Hungary despite arrest warrant
Netanyahu arrived in Hungary early Thursday on his second foreign
trip since the world’s top war crimes court issued an arrest warrant
against him in November over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the International Criminal Court
has said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of
warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and
intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas
— charges that Israeli officials deny.
ICC member countries, such as Hungary, are required to arrest
suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the
court has no way to enforce that and relies on states to comply. As
Netanyahu arrived in Budapest, Hungary said it will begin the
procedure of withdrawing from the ICC.
Israeli strike reported in Lebanon
At least two people were killed early Friday in an apparent Israeli
airstrike that hit an apartment in a multistory building in the
coastal city of Sidon in Lebanon. An Associated Press photographer
at the scene saw two bodies being carried out of the building by
emergency responders.
There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military. It was
the first time an airstrike had hit Lebanon’s third largest city
since a tenuous ceasefire agreement brought an end to the latest
Israel-Hezbollah war in late November. Israel has continued to carry
out regular airstrikes targeting what it has said are facilities and
officials of Hezbollah and allied groups since the ceasefire.
___
Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writers
Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations
contributed to this report.
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