Reuters:
CAIRO, Aug 8 – Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 40 people, Palestinian medics said, in further battle with Hamas-led militants as Israel braced for potential wider war in the region.
Israeli airstrikes hit a cluster of houses in central Gaza’s Al-Bureij camp, killing at least 15 people, and the nearby Al-Nuseirat camp, killed four, medics said. Nuseirat and Bureij are among the densely populated enclave’s eight historic camps and seen by Israel as strongholds of armed militants.
Israeli aircraft also bombed a house in the heart of Gaza City in the north, killing five Palestinians, while another airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, according to medics.
Later on Thursday, 15 Palestinians were killed and 30 injured in Israeli bombings of two schools east of Gaza City, the territory’s Civil Emergency Service said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it struck Hamas command and control centres embedded in the Abdel-Fattah Hamouda and Al-Zahra schools in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, where Hamas militants were operating.
It accused Hamas of exploiting civilians and civilian properties for military purposes, an allegation Hamas denies.
Footage circulated on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed casualties being brought to a hospital on donkey carts.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were firing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs at Israeli forces operating across Gaza, causing deaths and injuries among them.
