Israeli airstrikes on Friday claimed the lives of at least 27 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, according to medics. Meanwhile, health officials resumed polio vaccinations for tens of thousands of children in the enclave. In Nuseirat, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, an Israeli strike killed two women and two children. Additionally, eight more people were killed in two separate airstrikes in Gaza City, medics reported.
The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, called the strike a “precise operation” targeting a Hamas compound it said was embedded inside a UNRWA school in the camp. The IDF said it was “in close cooperation” with the UN agency and Hamas to prevent militants from using schools for military purposes. The IDF has previously struck five other schools sheltering displaced Palestinians since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7.
As the airstrikes continued across the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, or UNRWA, resumed a program to return the country’s 625,000 school-age children to education. The program will run in 45 of the schools-turned-shelters and will focus on activities like games, drama, arts, and music to give children a “respite from the daily stress they face and a chance to reconnect with their friends.”
In the West Bank, the family of a dual US-Turkish citizen who was killed while demonstrating against Israeli settlement expansion demanded an independent investigation into her death. The government in her home country has accused the IDF of killing her “violently.”
On Thursday, the IDF pressed ahead with its ground operation in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, launching an attack on an underground tunnel believed to be used by the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to smuggle weapons into the enclave. The tunnels, which run into the occupied part of Israel, are a significant threat to the security of both sides.
The fighting has displaced about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, and many have been forced to flee multiple times in the 11-month war that has brought Israel and Hamas close to an all-out war. The conflict has killed more than 20,000 people, including an estimated 1,600 civilians.