Israel-Lebanon latest: ‘Dozens killed’ in Gaza school strike after Hezbollah commander assassinated in Beirut
It comes as footage emerged showing Israeli soldiers throwing bodies of three dead Palestinians off a rooftop
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Dozens of people including children have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
At least 22 people, including 13 children and six women, were killed in the attack on Gaza City while using the building as a shelter, the ministry added.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas command centre embedded in the building previously used as a school.
Footage from the site showed blasted walls, wrecked and burnt furniture, and holes in the ceiling of one room as witnesses said children were in the playground.
It comes after at least 31 people including a top Hezbollah commander were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday.
Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s operations commander, was killed in the strike on a block of apartments in the city’s southern suburbs on Friday afternoon. Lebanon said 68 people were also injured in the attack.
Aqil was involved in Hezbollah’s bombing of the US embassy in Beirut which killed 63 people in April 1983, according to the US State Department.
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School shelter hit in Gaza strike
Palestinians said an Israeli strike killed at least 22 people in a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City on Saturday, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a command centre of militant group Hamas.
The Gaza health ministry said most of those killed were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said 13 children and six women were among the dead.
The military said it hit a Hamas command centre embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating an accusation that the group uses civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies that.
Reuters footage from the site showed blasted walls, wrecked and burnt furniture, and holes in the ceiling of one room as people tried to salvage what they could of belongings.
“The women and their children were sitting in the playground of the school, the kids were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them,” said one witness Said Al-Malahi.
Cyprus urges restraint in Lebanon
Cyprus’s president called for restraint over escalating tensions in the Middle East in separate telephone conversations with the Lebanese and Israeli prime ministers on Saturday, his spokesperson said in a statement.
The east Mediterranean island is the closest European Union member state to the Middle East, and has good relations with both Lebanon and Israel. Cyprus was ready to act as a conduit for diplomacy as well as facilitate contacts between the sides, said spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday that Israel is committing “shameless crimes” against children.
His comments came a day after an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, killed 31 people, including three children and seven women, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
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At least 31 people including three children and seven women were killed in the Israeli military’s airstrike on Beirut on Friday, the Lebanese health minister said.
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Israel has declared a ‘new phase of war’ on its border with Lebanon
Hezbollah confirms death of another top commander
Hezbollah has said a second senior commander, Ahmed Wahbi, was also killed in Israel’s strike on Beirut on Friday.
Wahbi oversaw the military operations of the Radwan special forces during the Gaza war until early 2024.
Hezbollah had earlier confirmed that its senior commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed in the strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
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