ISRAEL’s relentless destruction of Gaza and targeting of the Palestinian civilian population show no sign of abating, with at least 65 people killed in attacks since dawn, as Hamas’s acceptance of a United States ceasefire plan to end the genocidal two-year war remains uncertain.
Two missiles struck al-Falah School on Wednesday, which had been converted into a shelter for hundreds of displaced people in the Zeitoun neighbourhood east of Gaza City, where Israel has expanded its ground invasion alongside heavy aerial bombardment.
As Palestinian Civil Defence crews rushed to the scene, another attack critically injured many of them, including Munther Al-Dahshan, who was later confirmed to have died from his wounds.
“Eyewitnesses reported that when civil defence teams rushed to the site and tried pull people out of the rubble, a full attack targeted them, leading to critical injuries,” Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reported from Gaza City.
Medical sources at al-Ahli Arab Hospital earlier told Al Jazeera that six people were killed and others were injured in the attack.
Other attacks targeted a house in the Daraj neighbourhood, killing at least seven people and injuring others, and the south-eastern Zeitoun neighbourhood, killing a child, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Forty-seven of the latest 65 Palestinian victims were killed in Gaza City, sources told Al Jazeera.
As a result of the escalating hostilities, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday that it had temporarily suspended operations in Gaza City, just as the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) did last week.
“The ICRC will continue to strive to provide support to civilians in Gaza City, whenever circumstances allow, from our offices in Deir al-Balah and Rafah, which remain fully operational,” it said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that the Israeli military had shut al-Rashid Street, which it described as “one of the vital arteries that civilians rely on for travel between Gaza’s governorates”.
Thousands of Palestinians have been forced by Israeli bombardment to flee the north to the south on this perilous route.
Meanwhile, 11 unidentified bodies were buried in a mass grave inside al-Shifa Hospital courtyard, west of Gaza City. The medical complex, the largest in the besieged enclave, has been under constant Israeli fire in recent days.
Kidney dialysis patients at al-Shifa are in increasing peril as bombing and gunfire continue to surround them.
Emergency and ambulance sources reported that three citizens were killed in air raids targeting two houses in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, according to the Wafa news agency.
The attacks come as displaced Palestinians, who have fled heavy Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, continue to seek refuge further south.