Israeli strike kills seven in Gaza school compound, Palestinian medics say

An Israeli airstrike killed seven people in a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on Sunday, Palestinian health officials said, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted militants operating from the compound.

The strike hit Kafr Qasem School in Beach camp at around 11 am (0800 GMT), the officials said. Among those killed was Majed Saleh, the director of the Hamas-run Public Works and Housing ministry, they added.

Israel’s military said the strike targeted Hamas fighters there, and that it had used aerial surveillance and taken other steps to limit the risk to civilians.

Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules Gaza, has regularly denied Israeli accusations that it uses hospitals and other civilians buildings for military purposes in the near year-old war.

The attack and other reported violence in Gaza came amid a surge of strikes further north between Israel and the Iran-backed forces of Hezbollah across the border with Lebanon – a parallel conflict that had stoked fears of wider regional unrest.

Six other Palestinians were killed in separate airstrikes in central and southern parts of Gaza, the medics said. They put the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes so far on Sunday at 16.

In Rafah, near Gaza’s border with Egypt, residents said Israeli tanks advanced towards the western parts of the city, where the army has operated since May, and took positions over some hilltops overseeing the coastal road.