BEIRUT, October 14. /TASS/. Twenty people have been killed in a shelling of a school of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the central Gaza Strip, the agency's Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said.

"Meanwhile, in the same area, an UNRWA school was hit with 20 people reported killed. The school was planned to be used for the polio vaccination campaign which started today."

"We had to cancel the vaccination campaign in that school due to severe damage," Lazzarini said on his X page.

Lazzarini also said that a strike on the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir al Balah caused the tents where people were sheltering to catch fire. The UNRWA head called the incident a "night of horror" and said that Gaza was a "never ending hell."

Earlier, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV channel reported that three people were killed and 40 others were injured in an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Deir al Balah.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East after supporters of Hamas entered Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched a military operation in the enclave with the aim of destroying the military and political structure of Hamas and freeing all those kidnapped. The fighting in the Gaza Strip continues to this day.