“Gaza Civil Defence Reports Israeli Strike on Displacement Shelter”

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 25 people on Thursday, including 12 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war nearing its 22nd month. Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where its war on Hamas militants has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory's population of more than two million. Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians. In Gaza City on Thursday, civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told AFP that 12 people, "the majority of them children and women", were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter, which the Israeli military did not confirm. Pressure has risen for a ceasefire to allow sorely needed humanitarian aid into Gaza at scale and permit the release of hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas's October 2023 attack that sparked the war.

US President Donald Trump earlier this week declared a new ceasefire push, aiming for an initial 60-day truce, which he said had Israel's backing. But Israel's leaders held firm to their objective of crushing Hamas, even as the group said Tuesday it was discussing new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators. At the Gaza City school compound hit on Thursday, AFP footage showed young children wandering through the charred, bombed out building, as piles of burnt debris smouldered. Groups of Palestinians picked through the rubble and damaged furniture that littered the floor. Umm Yassin Abu Awda, who was among mourners who gathered at the city's Al-Shifa hospital after the strike, said: "This isn't a life. We've suffered enough." "For two years, we've been fighting just to get a piece of bread," she told AFP. "Either you (Israel) strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people's conscience needs to finally wake up." Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into the reported strike as well as another incident, in central Gaza, where according to Mughayyir Israeli gunfire killed people seeking humanitarian aid.

The civil defence official said the gunfire killed six people and resulted in "a large number of injuries" among a group of Palestinians near an aid distribution site. It was the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive scarce supplies. Across Gaza on Thursday, Mughayyir said artillery shelling in the northern town of Beit Lahia killed three people. A strike on Jabalia, also in the north, killed one. Further south, three people were killed in a strike that hit tents housing displaced people in the coastal Al-Mawasi area, Mughayyir said. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency. The Israeli military did not comment on the reported incidents in Beit Lahia, Jabalia and Al-Mawasi, but told AFP in response that it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" and that it "follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm".

Despite mounting calls at home and globally for a ceasefire, Israel's hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on Wednesday to push the offensive harder. "Let's finish the job in Gaza. We must bring down Hamas, occupy the Gaza Strip, encourage the transfer" of Palestinians out of the territory, Ben Gvir said in a television interview. To the minister, Israel was now "in a position to achieve" victory over Hamas, which he said would help free the remaining hostages still held in Gaza. "We must bring them back, but the way to bring them back is to bring down Hamas," he said. Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,012 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.