Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 41,534

A Palestinian woman holds a cat as she walks pas the rubble of houses destroyed in the Israel’s military offensive in Khan Younis on Sept. 26, 2024. (Reuters)

• The toll includes 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours
• Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strike on school

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Civil defense rescuers in Gaza said an Israeli strike Thursday on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 15 people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted a Hamas command center.
The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there were “15 martyrs, including children and women, and dozens wounded, some of them seriously, following an Israeli bombardment of Al-Faluja school in Jabalia camp in north Gaza.”
Bassal earlier said the death toll was seven.
The military said it carried out “precise strikes” targeting Hamas militants operating inside what it said was a command-and-control center at the Al-Faluja school.
AFP was unable to immediately verify what was targeted, and the military statement did not provide information on casualties.
Thursday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 41,534 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, now in its 12th month.
The toll includes 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 96,092 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.