Israeli Airstrikes Kill at Least 52 in Gaza, Including 36 Sheltering in School
Israeli strikes on Monday killed at least 52 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, including 36 people at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood, The AP reports.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the facility housed a militant command center; local doctors reported the dead included a father and his five children.
Witnesses said three missiles hit the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School around dawn while families were asleep, igniting mattresses and belongings. Video shared on social media showed rescuers pulling charred bodies from burning classrooms. Emergency-services chief Fahmy Awad said dozens were wounded and treated at nearby Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals, which confirmed the overall death toll.
The IDF said it targeted “a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command-and-control hub,” adding that militants “routinely embed in civilian sites.” Hamas called the attack a “massacre.”
A separate airstrike destroyed a house in Jabalya, killing 16 members of one family, including five women and two children, according to Shifa Hospital records. The IDF did not immediately comment on that strike.
Israel relaunched large-scale operations in March after a collapsed cease-fire, vowing to dismantle Hamas and free the remaining 58 hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023, assault that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. Israeli officials say roughly one-third of the hostages are presumed alive.
The Gaza Health Ministry says Israel’s campaign has now killed about 54,000 Palestinians, more than half women and children. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
After a 2½-month shut-off, Israel began allowing limited humanitarian deliveries last week, but aid groups say the flow—about 100 truckloads so far—falls far short of the 500–600 trucks per day experts deem necessary. A U.S.–backed aid mechanism designed to bypass Hamas and operate under Israeli oversight could begin as early as Monday, though its American coordinator resigned Sunday, saying the system lacks true independence. U.N. agencies have refused to participate.
Israel says it aims to take full control of Gaza and facilitate what it calls the “voluntary migration” of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents — a proposal rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community. The war has displaced roughly 90 percent of Gaza’s population, many of whom have fled multiple times as entire neighborhoods are reduced to rubble.
