IDF says it struck Hamas command centers embedded in disused Gaza schools
Citing Hamas-run health ministry, Palestinian media reports 20 killed in strikes; IDF said to carry out early morning raids in Khan Younis neighborhoods
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck Hamas command centers embedded in disused schools in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the IDF said, as Palestinian media reported that some 20 people were killed and dozens more were injured in the strikes.
The military said that two of the command centers were located in schools in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, while a third was embedded in a compound in central Gaza that had previously served as the Nuseirat Girls’ School.
Accusing Hamas of using the schools as a base to plan and carry out “terror attacks against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel,” the military said that the strikes had been guided by pinpoint intelligence.
It said that it had taken steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strikes, and accused Hamas of “systematically” using civilian sites for terror.
In the aftermath of the strikes, Palestinian media cited Hamas-run health authorities to report that 17 people had been killed at a former school in Gaza City, and three in the school in Nuseirat.
The IDF did not immediately comment on reports of civilian casualties.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that more than 40,000 people have been killed in the Strip throughout the last year of war between Israel and Hamas, although the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel has said that it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
As of August, Israel said it had killed some 17,000 combatants in battle in Gaza, and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.
Also on Wednesday, Israeli tanks were said to have advanced in areas of Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave. Palestinian media reported that the tanks carried out a raid on several areas in the east and center of the city, before partially retreating.
The Hamas-run health ministry said that some 51 people had been killed in the raids, and at least 82 were said to have been injured. The IDF did not immediately comment on the reports.
Residents in the Khan Younis area reported that heavy airstrikes had accompanied the raids into three neighborhoods in the city.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said on Wednesday that it was making preparations to start in mid-October a second round of polio vaccinations for some 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip.
UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in the announcement that vitamin supplements would also be distributed during the vaccination campaign.
The second round of vaccines is scheduled to begin following the successful first round back in August, which the World Health Organization said in September had seen more than 90 percent of children in the Strip receive a first dose of the vaccine.
