Israeli airstrike kills at least 10 near Gaza school as ceasefire falters

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people and wounded several others outside a school sheltering displaced Palestinians on Monday, health officials said, in the latest violence to shake a fragile US-backed Gaza ceasefire.

The strike followed clashes between Palestinians and members of an Israeli-backed militia, whom residents accused of attacking the school in an attempt to abduct people. Medics and locals said that during the confrontation, east of the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, Israeli drones fired two missiles into the area.

It was not immediately clear how many of those killed were civilians, as the strike hit a densely populated neighbourhood largely inhabited by displaced families.

An eyewitness, Ahmed Al-Maghazi, said militia members operating near areas under Israeli control had first attacked the neighbourhood and opened fire. “Residents tried to defend their homes, but the occupation forces targeted them directly,” he told Reuters.

Later, a leader of one of the Israeli-backed militias claimed in a video — which Reuters could not immediately verify — that five Hamas members had been killed. There was no immediate response from Hamas, which has previously described such groups as “Israeli collaborators.”

Elsewhere on Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed one Palestinian and injured a child travelling on a motorbike in Gaza City, medics said. Another Palestinian was killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a vehicle in central Gaza, bringing the day’s death toll to at least 12.

The Israeli military said troops had fired at an “unmarked vehicle” that continued advancing despite warning shots.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a contractor in Gaza was killed in a security incident, prompting the agency to suspend medical evacuations through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. The Israeli military said two local WHO employees were injured and that the incident was under review, while the WHO said its staff present at the scene were unharmed.

Israel and Hamas have continued to trade blame over violations of the ceasefire that began in October. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 700 people have been killed by Israeli fire since then, while Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed by militants during the same period.

A key sticking point in ongoing talks remains Hamas’s refusal to disarm, an issue central to the next phase of US President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan. On Sunday, Hamas’s armed wing said discussing disarmament before Israel fully implements the first phase of the plan was an attempt to prolong what it called a “genocide” against Palestinians.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel killed around 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.

The war has devastated the enclave, triggering widespread hunger, displacing most of the population, and reducing much of Gaza to rubble.