Gaza: 11 dead in Israeli strike on school

Gaza health officials said an Israeli airstrike targeting a group of police officers at a school sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least 11 people on Sunday, while the army said it struck a Hamas command center.

“Eleven people, including a woman and a girl, were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit the Safad school in Gaza City which was sheltering displaced people,” civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP, adding that several people were also injured.

The school housed a Hamas police station, another Gaza health official said on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli military said its air force struck a Hamas command center in the Safad school.

“The Israeli Air Force struck Hamas terrorists operating in an integrated command and control center in the area that previously served as the Safad school in Gaza City,” the military said in a statement.

Separately, Israeli police said Sunday that a reservist soldier who went “on a mission” to shoot a person “of Arab origin” was arrested after shooting a victim in Jerusalem.

A police statement said the incident occurred “on a Friday evening” last month, without specifying the date, when the 34-year-old suspect left his home “with the weapon he held as part of his reserve duty.”

The suspect “was on a search mission for a victim of Arab origin” in a park in West Jerusalem, the statement said.

“When the suspect identified a potential victim, he sat the individual down on a bench by the side of the road and began questioning him while holding the weapon against his body,” he said.

“After being convinced that the victim was of Arab origin, the suspect pointed his weapon and attempted to shoot. The victim, however, managed to escape without being injured.”

The suspect was arrested days later and told authorities he “fired the gun to intimidate the victim,” the statement said, adding that “an indictment is expected to be filed against him in the coming days.”

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World reacts to airstrikes that killed Hamas leader in Iran and Hezbollah commander in Beirut

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Such incidents are relatively rare in Jerusalem, although in June Israeli police said a Palestinian was seriously injured in a shooting in the annexed Old City of East Jerusalem during a “quarrel” between off-duty Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.

Since then, the Israeli military has been bombarding Gaza from the air, sea and ground, in an assault that has so far killed at least 40,738 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.