Israeli airstrikes kill 11 Palestinians in Gaza
REUTERS/SHIR TOREM / SEPT. 17
Smoke rises following a strike in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
CAIRO >> Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 11 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave said on Sunday, as Israeli planes bombarded several northern, central and southern areas.
A school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip was among buildings hit, killing four people and wounded several others, Gaza medics said.
The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants operating from a command centre embedded in a compound that had previously served as Um Al-Fahm School. It accused Hamas of exploiting civilian facilities and its population for military purposes, which Hamas denies.
In another strike, three people were killed in a house in Gaza City, medics said. Four others were killed in three separate airstrikes in Nuseirat and Khan Younis in central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces pursued their operations in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, and in Gaza City’s suburb of Zeitoun, where forces blew up several houses, according to residents and Hamas media.
On Sunday the Israeli military said forces continue the fight in a “multi-front war” and are operating in Gaza to bring Israeli and foreign hostages home and to “dismantle” Hamas.
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It said troops discovered and dismantled an underground tunnel route that is approximately 1km long near residential buildings and civilian spaces in central Gaza, adding that they found several rooms and equipment used by Hamas for proonged periods.
Fighting and Israeli military activities in Gaza have declined in the past week as Israel escalated its military offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Friday. The group announced Nasrallah’s death on Saturday.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced by the war, in which 41,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel and Hamas have been fighting since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing about 250 hostages, going by Israeli tallies.
