GAZA, July 3 – At least 80 Palestinians, including 37 near U.S.-backed aid distribution centers, were killed in Israeli shelling and gunfire in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian sources said.
Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that Israeli warplanes targeted the Mustafa Hafez school, which houses displaced people in al-Rimal neighborhood west of Gaza City, with one missile.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Gaza, told Xinhua that the Israeli attack on the school killed 13 people, including children and women, and wounded several others.
Israeli aircraft targeted two gatherings of Palestinians in the towns of Jabalia and Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding 10 others, according to Basal.
Basal added that four people, including a woman, were killed in several airstrikes targeting homes and Palestinian gatherings in the Tuffah and Zeitoun neighborhoods of Gaza City.
Hamas-linked prisoners’ information office said in a press statement that three freed prisoners deported from the West Bank to the coastal enclave were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza announced in a press statement the arrival of 25 dead and dozens wounded as a result of an Israeli airstrike near a U.S.-backed aid distribution center at the Netzarim junction in the central Gaza Strip.
Nasser Medical Complex announced in a press statement the deaths of at least 24 people in Israeli airstrikes on the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, including five who were waiting for aid.
Seven others were killed and 30 wounded by Israeli army fire near a U.S.-backed aid center in the Shakoush area north of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, according to a brief statement issued by Red Cross Hospital.
In a statement on Thursday, the Hamas-run Gaza interior authorities warned against “dealing, cooperating, or interacting, directly or indirectly” with the U.S.-backed aid group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, accusing the organization of being a “mass death trap” and “systematic violation of human dignity and rights.”
Over the past few weeks, Palestinians have been repeatedly targeted while waiting for food in various areas of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million people, sparking widespread international condemnation.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that over the past day, the air force struck approximately 150 “terror targets” throughout the Gaza Strip, including militants, underground routes, military structures, weapons, sniper posts, and additional infrastructure sites.
“The IDF will continue to operate to remove any threat posed to Israeli civilians,” it said.
On March 18, Israel resumed its military operations in the enclave. At least 6,572 Palestinians had been killed and 23,132 others injured since Israel renewed its intensive strikes, bringing the total death toll since October 2023 to 57,130, and injuries to 135,173, Gaza-based health authorities said on Thursday.
XINHUA, 3.7.2025
