Israeli strikes claim 28 lives in Gaza

GAZA STRIP, Dec 22 (AFP): Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes overnight and early Sunday killed at least 28 Palestinians, including at one family's home and at a school building the military said was used by Hamas.
There was no let-up in the violence in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever".
Civil agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in a statement that at least 13 people were killed in an air strike on a house in central Gaza's Deir el-Balah belonging to the Abu Samra family.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has confirmed a separate strike further north, on a school in Gaza City.
Bassal said that eight people including four children were killed in the attack on the school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the war.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a "precise strike" overnight targeting Hamas militants operating there.
A military statement said that a Hamas "command and control centre... was embedded inside" the school compound in the city's east, adding that it was used "to plan and execute terrorist attacks" against Israeli forces.
Contacted by AFP, an Israeli military spokesperson said they were unable to immediately comment on other reported strikes elsewhere in Gaza.
Bassal said an overnight strike killed three people in Rafah, in the south.
Palestinians have little
protection for cold, rain
Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.
There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.
Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.
"We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we're inside," she said.
With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the 40s (the mid-to-high single digits Celsius), Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.
When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.