At least 27 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a school in northern Gaza that was serving as a shelter for displaced families, the Hamas-run health ministry says.
Dozens more were wounded when the Dar al-Arqam school in the north-eastern Tuffah district of Gaza City was hit, it cited a local hospital as saying.
The Israeli military said it struck “prominent terrorists who were in a Hamas command and control centre” in the city, without mentioning a school.
The health ministry earlier reported the killing of another 97 people in Israeli attacks over the previous 24 hours, as Israel said its ground offensive was expanding to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory.
The spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Bassal, said children and women were among the dead following the strike on Dar al-Arqam school.
He also said a woman who was heavily pregnant with twins was missing along with her husband, her sister, and her three children.
Video from the nearby al-Ahli hospital showed children being rushed there in cars and trucks with serious injuries.
A statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the site in Gaza City that it struck had been used by Hamas fighters to plan attacks against Israeli civilians and troops.
It added that numerous steps had been taken to mitigate harm to civilians.
