DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip, Oct 10, (AP): An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip killed at least 23 people on Thursday, with the toll likely to rise, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding among civilians.

Israel has continued to strike at what it says are militant targets across the Palestinian enclave even as attention has shifted to its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and rising tensions with Iran. The military launched a large-scale air and ground operation against Hamas in northern Gaza earlier this week.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought, confirmed the toll from the strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah. It said several other people were wounded. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances streaming into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces. "We appeal to the world. We are dying!” one man screamed.

The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike targeting a militant command and control center inside the school, without providing evidence. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that were turned into shelters in Gaza, accusing militants of hiding out in them. Witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the strike occurred while school managers were meeting with representatives of an aid group in a room normally used by Hamas-run police who provide security.

They said there were no police in the room at the time. The Hamas-run government operated a civilian police force numbering in the tens of thousands. They largely vanished from the streets after the start of the war as Israel targeted them with airstrikes, but plainclothes Hamas security personnel still exert control over most areas. Hamas has continued to launch attacks on Israeli forces and fire occasional rockets into Israel more than a year after its Oct. 7 attack ignited the war.

Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities in that attack, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others.

They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times. The Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, drawing Israeli airstrikes in retaliation.

The fighting steadily escalated, and eventually boiled over into all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out waves of heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching a ground invasion. Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.

Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah, and other armed groups across the region that refer to themselves as the Axis of Resistance against Israel. Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah militants. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that its response to the Iranian missile attack will be "lethal” and "surprising,” without providing further details, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden.