Israeli attack on school shelter in Gaza City kills 5 Palestinians, most of them children

Five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, the head of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Mohamed Abu Selmia, told Reuters on Friday.

The Palestinian civil emergency service said in a statement that most of the killed were children, and added that a number of wounded had been transferred to hospitals for treatment.

A hospital which received the casualties said the dead included a baby.

The civil emergency service said they were only able to recover the bodies after the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs coordinated with the Israelis.

The Israeli army claimed that "suspicious individuals" had been identified in the area and its troops fired at them.

The Palestinian group Hamas called the attack a "brutal crime" and another violation of the ceasefire agreement.

With those five killed, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire rose to 400 since the ceasefire began in October, according to the health ministry.

The war in Gaza, which began in October 2023, has killed more than 70,660 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to health ministry figures.