Israeli strike 'kills 15 including children' at Gaza school

Fifteen people have been killed, including at least five children, by an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The Abu Hussein school, in Jabalia, northern Gaza, was sheltering displaced people, Gaza health ministry official Medhat Abbas told Reuters.

Dozens were injured in the strike, he said, adding: “There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing.”

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said the attack targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the site.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.

“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he added.

Footage showed emergency workers rushing the wounded out of the compound amid debris and crowds of people, according to AP.

It comes as earlier this week, Israeli forces struck at another school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, killing 23 people.

In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.

After the most recent attack, Israel provided a list of names it claimed were militants present when the strike was called in.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Syria’s military claimed that Israel carried out a strike in the coastal city of Latakia, injuring two civilians and damaging a military post.

Israel has previously targeted military sites in Syria linked to Iran and Hezbollah.

It has escalated its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese-based militant group in recent weeks after a year of near-daily exchanges across the shared border.

In central Beirut, a building that houses the offices of the Al Jazeera news network and the Norwegian embassy had to be evacuated after a warning.

Al Jazeera reported that the building had been evacuated on Thursday, without saying where the warning had come from.

“We can confirm that the building where the Norwegian embassy in Beirut is located has received a bomb threat today,”
the Norwegian ministry said in a statement.

“Only a few Norwegian diplomats are now in Beirut, and everyone at the embassy is safe and sound,” it added.

Israel has previously ordered the evacuation of several buildings, as well as entire cities, towns and villages.

There have also been several instances of evacuation warning calls and text messages that turned out to be bogus, which Lebanese security agencies said they were investigating.

Israel has killed over 42,000 Palestinians since Hamas-led militants stormed into the south of the country on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others.

The figure, which comes from the enclave’s health ministry, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up more than half the dead.