Gaza/Jerusalem, Oct 17 (IANS): At least 28 Palestinians were killed and 160 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people in the Jabalia camp of northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

Fires broke out in the tents of the displaced individuals in the schoolyard because of the bombing. Some casualties were transferred to a hospital in northern Gaza, while ambulance teams were unable to reach the people in the targeted school, according to the Palestinian official news agency WAFA.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the Israeli Air Force conducted a "precise strike" on an operational meeting point for Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in northern Gaza.

The militants were operating inside a command and control center embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Abu Hassan School, the IDF said.

Dozens of militants were present in the compound at the time of the strike, said the IDF, which also published 12 names of those present.

The militants were involved in rocket attacks into the Israeli territory, as well as in planning and committing attacks against IDF troops and Israel in recent days, it claimed.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense in Gaza, said Thursday in a statement that the Israeli army is carrying out a "systematic destruction" of the Jabalia camp, using all means, including explosive robots, to empty the camp.

Medics told Xinhua news agency that eight people were killed and dozens of others injured in an Israeli bombing on a house belonging to the al-Helou family west of Gaza City, while the Civil Defence Authority in Gaza said Thursday in a press statement that its team recovered the bodies of six Palestinians killed in a bombing in the town of al-Fakhari, east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Local sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli aircraft and artillery intensively bombed the outskirts of the Zeitoun neighbourhood in southern Gaza and the Sabra neighborhood in the west, amidst gunfire from Israeli tanks.

According to the IDF, its troops have killed militants and destroyed infrastructure in the area of Rafah in southern Gaza over the past day, dismantled a "terrorist cell" and located a large number of weapons in northern Gaza, and dismantled military infrastructure and killed militants in central Gaza, including in the outskirts of Nuseirat and Al Bureij refugee camps. The IDF did not specify the number of the casualties.