Israeli strikes on Gaza restaurant and market kill 20, medics say

At least 20 Palestinians have been killed in two Israeli strikes on a crowded restaurant and market on the same street in Gaza City, medics say.

Graphic videos posted on social media showed bodies slumped over tables at the Thailandy restaurant, in the northern Rimal neighbourhood, which had recently been operating as a community kitchen.

Footage from the marketplace about 60m (196ft) away showed a small child with a rucksack lying dead in the street.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

Earlier, local hospitals said at least 59 people had been killed in attacks since Tuesday night, most of them at two schools serving as shelters for displaced families.

Women and children were among 33 people who were killed when the UN-run Abu Humeisa school in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, was bombed twice on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

The Israeli military said it struck “terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command-and-control centre”.

The military has not yet commented on a strike on the al-Karama school in the eastern Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City on Wednesday morning, which the Civil Defence said killed another 15 people.

Eight members of one family also died when their home in the southern city of Khan Younis was hit, the agency added.

It comes amid international condemnation of Israel’s plans to expand and intensify its ground offensive against Hamas after 19 months of war.

Israeli officials have said the plans include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies.

Israel cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 52,653 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.