Israeli strike on school used as shelter in refugee camp kills at least 17 people

At least 17 people, the majority children, have been killed by Israel's bombing of a school turned shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said yesterday.

- Bethan McKernan

The strike, the latest targeting a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza, came as the Qatar-based news network AI Jazeera accused Israel of turning its journalists reporting from north Gaza into targets after the Israeli military claimed on Wednesday that six reporters were members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

It also came amid reports of renewed international efforts to broker a ceasefire in the year-long Israel-Hamas war, following a twoday visit to the region by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

Rescue efforts were still under way at the school in Nuseirat camp, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for Gaza's civil defence agency. The Israeli military claimed the school was being used as a Hamas command and control centre.

Another 42 people were wounded in the strike in the overcrowded camp, according to nearby al-Awda hospital, which received the casualties. Among the dead were 13 children, and three women, it said.

The Nuseirat attack came as Israel continued a new offensive in northern Gaza which Bassal said had killed 770 people since it began on 6 October. Thousands of people have fled to the relative safety of the south of the strip in recent days.