At least 61 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past two days as Israel’s war on the besieged enclave enters its 12th month with little sign of relief for the Palestinian territory.
Israeli airstrikes killed more than a dozen people on Saturday night, hospital and local authorities said, as health workers wrapped up the second phase of an emergency polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak.
Sources told A Jazeera that three women and two children were killed east of the Nusirat refugee camp in central Gaza as a result of Israeli shelling.
Separately, Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said at least three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians. Civil Defense also said 20 people were wounded in the attack that targeted the Amar Ibn al-As school in the Abu Iskandar area of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City.
The Israeli military said it carried out a “specific strike” at the school that “targeted fighters operating inside a Hamas command and control center… embedded within a compound that previously served as the Amr Ibn al-As school”.
‘Relentless Attack’
Al Jazeera’s Tarek Abu Azzum, reporting from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, said all of Gaza has been under relentless Israeli attacks since early this morning, especially in the north.
“The concentration of the attacks is in the city of Beit Lahiya, the Israeli army has opened wide fire on the area with artillery,” he said.
“An evacuation center in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City has also been hit by airstrikes. A number of casualties are being reported in the attack.”
In recent months, Israeli forces have attacked several schools housing displaced Palestinians, many of them in Gaza City, claiming that Hamas fighters were targeted.
About 41,000 people have been killed so far in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. According to the United Nations, most of the dead are women and children.
Pro-Palestine protest in London
Meanwhile, a crowd of protesters rallied in central London on Saturday against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Demonstrators chanted slogans and carried banners as they marched through the capital towards the Israeli embassy in South Kensington.
Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego reported, “Pro-Palestinian protesters held a rally in London the week British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his country would immediately suspend 30 of 350 licenses to export arms to Israel.”
“But the move is not nearly enough for the people we’ve spoken to here. As Lammy himself has said, this certainly does not go as far as 1982, when PM Margaret Thatcher imposed a total arms embargo on Israel over its participation in the Lebanon War.
“However, people here are demanding that more be done. They want all arms exports to end with immediate effect because we are going into almost 11 months of Israel’s war on Gaza and the situation is only getting worse.
Call for an inquiry into the slain worker
The UN also called for a “thorough investigation” into the killing by Israeli forces of American-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Igi, 26, while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements in Beita, the occupied West Bank.
“We want to see a full investigation into the circumstances and hold people accountable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a news conference, adding that civilians “must always be protected”.
Aggie was “shot in the head” while taking part in a demonstration on Friday, the UN rights office said.
His family too Called for investigation In a statement, “Her presence in our lives was unnecessarily, illegally and violently taken away by the Israeli military.”
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