Key points
- Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18
- Israeli targets school building
- Palestinian death toll due to Israeli strikes reaches 51,266
GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza’s civil defence agency on Wednesday said its crew recovered charred bodies from a school-turned-shelter for displaced people, as Israeli strikes killed 17 Palestinians since dawn.
Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18, in violation of the ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting in besieged Palestinian territory.
“Seventeen Palestinians have been killed since dawn,” Gaza’s civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Israel targets school
He said 11 of the Palestinian victims, which included women and children, died in an Israeli air strike targeting the Yafa school building in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighbourhood.
Seventeen people have been killed since dawn.” – Gaza’s Civil Defence Spokesman Mahmud Bassal
“The school was housing displaced Palestinians. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered,” he said.
Since the war began, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans have sought refuge in schools to escape Israeli attacks.
2.4 million Gazans displaced
Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began.
Bassal said his crew has received distress calls from several areas in Gaza.
“We lack the necessary tools and equipment to carry out effective rescue operations or recover the bodies of martyrs,” he added.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military stated that it had targeted approximately 40 “engineering vehicles”, alleging they were being used for “terror purposes”.
Bassal said air strikes destroyed bulldozers and other equipment needed to “clear debris and recover the bodies of martyrs from beneath the rubble”, as well as to “save lives, pull people from the rubble”.
Israeli air strike kills Palestinian child
Elsewhere in Gaza, additional fatalities were reported on Wednesday.
A Gazan child was killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in the northern Jabalia area, and another individual was killed in a similar incident in the southern city of Khan Yunis, the civil defence said.
Four more Palestinians were killed in Israeli shelling of homes in eastern Gaza City. Several others remain trapped beneath the rubble, according to Bassal.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.
Since Israel’s military campaign resumed, at least 1,890 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
