GAZA CITY, Palestine

Fatalities were reported in Israeli artillery shelling targeting a school and clinic sheltering displaced civilians in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia on Sunday, according to witnesses.

Israeli forces shelled the Abu Hussein School and Al-Fakhoura Clinic, both run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Jabalia, witnesses said.

The attack came hours after at least 87 people were killed and 40 others injured in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed entire residential block in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

On Thursday, at least 25 people were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli strike on the same school.

Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, amid its ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Under the rules of war, targeting such civilian facilities can constitute a war crime.

The Israeli army has pressed ahead with a massive offensive, now in its 16th day, in northern Gaza amid a suffocating siege on the area.

The onslaught was the latest episode in Israel’s brutal onslaught that has killed more than 42,600 people, mostly women and children, and injured 99,800 others since last year following a Hamas attack.

The Israeli war has displaced almost the entire population of Gaza amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala