Israel says airstrike destroys Hamas post in former Gaza school

The Israeli military said on Saturday that it conducted an airstrike that destroyed a Hamas command post in a former school complex in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

There were no reports from the Israeli side of killed or injured Hamas fighters or other casualties.

But the Palestinian news agency WAFA in the West Bank reported, citing Palestinian sources, that at least eight people were killed in the attack on the complex, including children.

WAFA said refugee families had found shelter in the former school.

The Israeli military described the attack as a precision strike and said measures had been taken beforehand to limit the risk of harm to civilians.

In another incident in Jabalia, three armed fighters were killed after they were spotted by a drone leaving a tunnel shaft, according to the Israeli military.

Rescuers hampered by fuel, spare parts shortages

Fire and rescue services in embattled Gaza are only partially operational, the local civil defence authority said on Saturday.

Some of the emergency vehicles in the cities of Gaza and Khan Younis are no longer running because there are no spare parts to maintain them, according to a statement from the Hamas-controlled authority.

Spare parts warehouses and workshops have been destroyed in the course of the war by Israeli airstrikes, it said.

In addition, a severe fuel shortage has rendered more than half of the rescue service vehicles in the Gaza Strip non-operational, it said.

The Civil Defence appealed to regional and international humanitarian organizations to urgently bring spare parts and equipment to Gaza so that the emergency services transport can be maintained.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, that saw Palestinian militants kill some 1,200 people and abduct another 250 to the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded by pounding Gaza with airstrikes and sending ground troops into the sealed-off coastal territory with the stated aim of defeating extremist group Hamas, which had controlled Gaza until then.

Almost 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to Palestinian estimates.