An Israeli airstrike on a municipial building in the Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah on Saturday killed at least 10 people, including the city’s mayor, according to a report from the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Dozens of displaced people were sheltering in the building, according to the Wafa report.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said shortly afterwards that the aim of the strike was killing the city’s mayor, who the IDF alleged had also been active as a cadre in the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The IDF said that he had supported Hamas combat operations, but did not provide further details of the allegations.
Further Israeli strikes in Gaza
Other Israeli strikes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip also killed several other people on Saturday, including at least seven people in a strike on the former Al-Majida Wasila School building in Gaza City, according to Wafa.
The news agency said that the building was also being used to house people displaced by the conflict.
The IDF said it was investigating the report.
The IDF, however, also acknowledged striking a different school compound near Gaza City on Saturday which was allegedly being used as a Hamas command post.
The Israeli Air Force “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists,” the IDF said in a post on its Telegram channel. It said the “terrorists” were planning to attack Israel and noted that the group “was embedded within a compound that previously served as the ‘Yaffa’ School in Gaza City.”
Israel forces have repeatedly targeted former school buildings amid their campaign in Gaza, accusing Palestinian extremist group Hamas of setting up command centres inside such buildings.
The IDF’s claims could not be independently verified.
The IDF contended that the military took measures to minimize risks to civilians, but did not provide information on casualties. Wafa reported that two people were killed and several others injured.
Dozens killed in past 24 hours
According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, a total of 55 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks within 24 hours.
More than 44,900 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began over 14 months ago. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and fighters, although many of those reported killed are women and children. The casualty reports cannot currently be independently verified.
Israel began launching intense attacks in the Gaza Strip in response to the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel led by Hamas. On October 7, attackers from Hamas and other groups killed more than 1,200 and abducted about 250 hostages.
The IDF on Saturday also said that the Israeli air force had attacked weapons depots and individuals allegedly involved in a Hamas missile attack on southern Israel, which was launched from Gaza on Friday evening.
An “active international aid warehouse” is located some 50 metres from the missile launch site targeted by Israel on Saturday, the IDF wrote on X.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
PA moves against Hamas in West Bank
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, meanwhile, security forces from the Palestinian Authority (PA) moved against the Hamas movement and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Jenin in an operation that began on Saturday morning and continued through the day.
The PIJ reported that one of its commanders had been killed. There was no confirmation from the PA.
The operation in the city in the north of the West Bank was aimed at liberating Jenin from “lawless elements,” a spokesman told Wafa. PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa was expected to visit.
Observers believe the PA fears an armed uprising in the West Bank that could topple the group from power, as happened in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after Hamas won parliamentary elections the previous year.
Since then, the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has maintained limited authority over the occupied West Bank only, with Israeli security forces repeatedly mounting their own operations.
At the start of the week, PA security forces were also active in Jenin against Hamas and PIJ, both of which accuse the PA of collaborating with Israel.
Relatives of the Palestinians died in Israeli attacks, mourn as they receive the dead bodies from the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Dair al Balah. Ali Hamad/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa