Hamas’ health ministry reported the deaths of more than 80 people on Saturday in two separate Israeli attacks on a United Nations-run refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
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Neither the Israeli army nor the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) immediately commented when contacted by AFP.
The first attack left at least 50 people dead “at dawn at Al-Fakhura school” in Jabaliya camp, where displaced people were staying, a ministry official told AFP.
Images posted on social media showed bodies, some covered in blood, others covered in dust, on the floors of the building, where mattresses were installed under school desks.
In the second strike, the ministry announced the deaths of 32 members of the same family, including 19 children, by publishing the list of names of the Abou Habal family.
In early November, the Hamas government announced that Israeli bombings of the Jabaliya refugee camp had killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds over the course of several three-day attacks.
Jabaliya is the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, where more than 80% of residents are refugees or descendants of refugees who left their homeland in 1948, when the State of Israel was founded.
All are looked after by Unrwa, which manages the eight camps in the small area.
In Jabaliya, Unrwa manages 26 schools and two health centers, with a third in the surrounding area.
According to the UN agency, at least 71 displaced people were killed and 573 injured while seeking shelter in the 154 shelters it opened in the Gaza Strip.
According to UNRWA, these shelters currently house 813,000 displaced people.
On October 7, Hamas launched an attack of unprecedented proportions in Israel. According to Israeli authorities, the men of the Palestinian Islamist movement killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped around 240 people along with other Palestinian armed groups.
In response, Israel has since bombed the Gaza Strip relentlessly. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 12,000 people were killed in these attacks, two-thirds of them women and children.
AFP