The Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said 26 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes against mosques and schools housing displaced Palestinians in the center of the Strip.
Dozens of people were injured in attacks on the Ibn Rushd School and the Al-Aqsa Martyr Mosque in Deir al-Balah early Sunday, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants operating within a “command and control” center on the ground.
In northern Gaza, Israeli forces surrounded the Jabalia area in what they called an effort to rebuild Hamas.
The military also declared a new evacuation zone in the north and reopened routes to humanitarian zones.
After the strike in central Gaza, footage seen by the BBC from a mosque shows bodies and blood in the rubble, and footage from a school shows buildings on fire and a man carried away on a stretcher. The situation is reflected.
Earlier, the Hamas-run civil defense agency said 21 people were killed and many others injured in the attack on the mosque, according to AFP news agency.
Sunday’s attack came almost exactly one year after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Since then, 41,870 Palestinians have been killed and more than 97,000 injured in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health. There is no distinction between civilians and combatants.
According to the United Nations, which considers figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health reliable, 187 people were killed in Gaza between September 30 and October 4 alone.
In a statement about the attack on the mosque, Hamas accused Israel of “blowing up people’s homes and destroying them from above, causing dozens of casualties.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that “a number of measures were taken before the attack to reduce the possibility of harm to civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.” said.
The IDF accused Hamas of “exploiting civilian institutions and the population as human shields for terrorist acts.”
Hamas denies using schools or other civilian facilities for military purposes.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli forces began an overnight siege of Jabalia in the north, in response to efforts by Hamas to rebuild in the area.
The military said it attacked “dozens of military targets” before and during the ground operation.
The IDF warned the public that northern Gaza “remains considered a dangerous combat zone” and on Sunday released a new map showing potential evacuation zones in the north.
It also expanded the humanitarian zone in Almawasi, southern Gaza, but said its size was still smaller than it was in early July.
Both the mosque and school damaged on Sunday are located in humanitarian zones.
The IDF said it had reopened two evacuation routes from the north to access the zone.
Israel does not allow international reporters from media outlets, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza, making it difficult to verify facts on the ground.
