Israel air strike targets Gaza, West Bank

15 Palestinians killed in Gaza school, nine in West Bank

CAIRO/ RAMALLAH:

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City killed at least 15 Palestinians on Saturday, hours after two strikes in the occupied West Bank killed nine fighters including a local Hamas commander, Hamas said.

The Israeli military said the first of two West Bank airstrikes hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack. A Hamas statement said one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades, while its ally Islamic Jihad claimed the other four men who died in the strike as its fighters.

Hours later, a second airstrike in the area targeted another group of militants who had fired on troops, Israel's military said, during what it described as a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarm. Palestinian news agency WAFA said four people had died in that strike, and Hamas said all nine of those killed in the two Israeli attacks in the West Bank were fighters.

Violence in the West Bank was on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and has risen since, with frequent Israeli raids in the territory, which is among those that the Palestinians seek for a state. There has also been an increase in anti-Israeli street attacks by Palestinians.

Gaza strikes

In the Gaza Strip, at least 10 people were killed in the Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas run-government media office said. The Israeli military said the school was being used as a command centre for Hamas, to hide militants and manufacture weapons.

Hamas has denied Israeli accusations that it operates from civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals.