Agencies
Gaza/Tel Aviv
At least 16 people have been killed in an attack by the Israeli army on a former school building in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian hospital staff.
Many others were injured in the attack, reported staff at the al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the coastal strip.
Internally displaced persons had sought shelter in the building, staff said. The Israeli army said that it had targeted fighters from the Hamas group in the school building. Measures had been taken beforehand to spare civilians, the army said.
Israel has been trying to destroy Hamas since the widescale attack in October 2023, which left some 1,200 dead in southern Israeli communities and 250 abducted. The air and ground offensive has reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble.
According to Hamas authorities, more than 42,800 people have died in the densely populated Palestinian territory, and over 100,000 have been injured. Most of these were civilians, although the figures do not distinguish between armed militants and civilians.
"Since the start of the military operation in northern Gaza more than 770 people have been killed,” said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the territory’s civil defence agency, according to AFP news agency. He added that the toll could rise as there were people buried under the rubble.
The civil defence agency also said it could no longer provide first responder services in the north, accusing Israeli forces of threatening to "bomb and kill” its crews, AFP reported.
Hussam Abu Safia, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said most of the surgeons have been arrested by Israeli forces and urgent surgeries for the many wounded cannot be performed.
"There are more than 15 cases that need surgeries that we cannot perform in the hospital,” he told Al Jazeera, adding the Israeli army refuses to evacuate patients in need or bring in any aid. Abu Safia earlier said tank shelling on the hospital caused severe damage to its intensive care unit.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has told BRICS leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, that the world needs peace in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and Sudan.
"Across the board, we need peace,” Guterres said at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan. "We need peace in Ukraine, a just peace in line with the UN Charter, international law and UN General Assembly resolutions.”