13 dead in air strike in Gaza Strip

An air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip left 13 people dead and dozens more injured, most of them women and children, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Saturday.

The agency cited local sources who attributed the attack to Israeli forces. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have not yet commented and the report could not be independently verified.

The building hit is said to be a former school that has been used as accommodation for families who fled their homes in other parts of the Gaza Strip since the war began in October last year.

In its latest update, the Hamas-controlled health authority reported that at least 38,098 people have been killed and another 87,705 injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began. The figures include both fighters and civilians.

According to the authorities, at least 87 people have died in the past two days.

Previously, the Israeli military had stated that they were continuing their operations in several areas of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said several armed Hamas members who attacked soldiers were killed in the Shejaiya district of Gaza city.

In an operation launched at the end of June, soldiers also discovered tunnels and longer-range rockets that indicate “a renewed attempt by the enemy to establish a base in the area,” the army said.

The Israeli military had already tried in the past to drive the Palestinian Islamist Hamas out of the district.

The Israeli military also said that fighting continued in Rafah, in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, and that “several terrorist cells that posed a threat” had been eliminated there.

In an area designated as a “humanitarian zone” in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the Israeli army said it attacked a Hamas rocket launcher hidden there.

Despite the ongoing Israeli offensive, rockets continue to be fired at Israel from the coastal region. A rocket aimed at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip recently crashed in an open field, according to recent Israeli media reports.

In the attack on southern Israel on October 7, terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups in the Gaza Strip killed 1,200 people and took up to 250 hostage. Israel believes that around 120 hostages are still there, but many of them are probably no longer alive.

The unprecedented massacre sparked the war in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli leadership declared that it was still determined to wipe out Hamas.