Lorenzo Tondo
The Guardian / September 22, 2024
Director of Hamas-run housing ministry among dead after strike on building housing displaced people, officials say.
Jerusalem – Seven people have been killed after an Israeli airstrike hit a school housing displaced people in western Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said, amid fears that Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis might be forgotten as tensions boil between Hezbollah and Israel.
The strike hit Kafr Qasem school in Beach camp on Sunday morning, officials in Gaza said. Among those killed was Majed Saleh, the director of the Hamas-run public works and housing ministry, they added.
Israel’s military said the strike had targeted Hamas fighters and that it had used aerial surveillance and taken other steps to limit the risk to civilians.
Gaza’s schools closed after the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, and most have been transformed into shelters. About 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times.
Six other Palestinians were killed in separate airstrikes in central and southern parts of Gaza, the medics said.
“All focus of the news and media is on Lebanon. Gaza is forgotten,” Nezar Zaqout, who is living in a tent camp in Muwasi in southern Gaza, told The Associated Press.
“Every day we heard that there was hope for negotiations, or new news that they were trying to solve the issue of the displaced … but we have become completely forgotten.”
Saadi Abu Mustafa told AP he feared that the escalation in fighting and the focus on Lebanon would “affect us negatively”. Hezbollah has said it is confronting Israel in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza, and Hamas praised Hezbollah on Sunday after the Lebanese group launched overnight rocket strikes at northern Israel.
Reports persist of Israeli bombardment from the air and land causing civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of homes and other civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Last Friday, Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in tank fire and airstrikes on northern and central areas of the Gaza Strip, medics said, as tanks advanced further into north-west Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
The Israeli military says forces operating in Rafah have killed hundreds of militants, located tunnels and explosives and destroyed military infrastructure.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, 70% of stockpiled medications and 83% of health supplies have been used up, forcing hospitals and healthcare facilities to suspend services.
Eleven months into the Gaza war, the death toll among Palestinians has passed 41,000, according to health authorities in the territory. Most of the dead are civilians and the total is nearly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population. The conflict was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people died and about 250 were taken hostage.
Lorenzo Tondo is a Guardian correspondent
