Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes killed 16 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including five women and four children.
A strike flattened a home in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 10 people there, including four women and two children. The Awda Hospital, which received the bodies, confirmed the toll and also said 13 people were wounded. Hospital records show that the dead included a mother, her child and her five siblings.
Another strike on a home in Gaza City killed six people, including a woman and two children, according to the Civil Defense, first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Israel says it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
People are also reading…
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the Israel-Hamas war nearly a year ago. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israeli settlers storm a West Bank school
Palestinians say Israeli settlers wielding sticks stormed a Palestinian school in the occupied West Bank, beating staff members and tying up the principal.
The Israeli military said Palestinians had attacked an Israeli nearby, inflicting a head injury, before fleeing to the school on Monday. It said a group of Israelis followed the attackers and a confrontation ensued in which a number of Palestinians were hurt.
Hassan Malihat, a Palestinian lawyer who at the time was visiting the school near the city of Jericho, said the settlers entered at around 8 a.m. He says the Israeli army arrived about two hours later and arrested three staff members, including the principal.
The military said soldiers and police were dispatched to the school, ended the confrontation and arrested a number of suspects.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service says seven Palestinians were wounded in the confrontation.
Settler violence has surged across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza. In some cases, Israeli settlers have stormed Palestinian villages setting cars and properties ablaze.
There has also been a rise in car-ramming, stabbing and shooting attacks carried out against Israelis by Palestinian militant groups and lone attackers.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war — lands the Palestinians want for a future state.
The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in some areas. Over 500,000 settlers with Israeli citizenship live in well over 100 settlements considered illegal by most of the international community.