The strike on the mosque, near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, came as the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.

Eyewitnesses said the number of casualties could rise as the mosque was being used to house displaced people.

The Israeli military said in a statement it “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded in a structure that previously served as the ‘Shuhada al-Aqsa’ Mosque in the area of Deir al Balah.”

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.