3 months ago
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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City early Saturday, killing more than 60 people, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest strikes in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.
The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, claiming it hit a Hamas command center within the school. Hamas denied using the school as a command center.
The strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City also wounded 47 people, the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service said. The facility, like almost all of Gaza’s schools, has been used as a shelter for people who have been forced to flee their homes by the war.
The strike hit without warning in the early morning before sunrise as people were praying at a mosque inside the school, according to Abu Anas, a witness who worked to rescue people.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people,” he said. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
Three missiles ripped through the school and the mosque inside, where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter from the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Many of the dead...
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