Israel strike on school kills at least 10 in Gaza City

Palestinian officials say an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed at least 10 people.

The Israeli military said Tuesday’s strike on the Mustafa Hafez school targeted Hamas militants who had set up a command center inside and were planning and launching attacks.

The Palestinian Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said the strike killed at least 10 people and that they were still searching for survivors. It said around 700 people were sheltering at the school when it was hit.

Earlier on Tuesday, a strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed five children and their mother, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.

The hospital said the father, Alaa Abu Zeid, a schoolteacher, has been in Israeli detention for the last nine months.

Bureij is one of several crowded, built-up refugee camps in Gaza that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense residential areas. It has struck several schools-turned-shelters in recent weeks, accusing Hamas fighters of sheltering inside them.