Jerusalem: Even as the Israeli military shifted its focus to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has continued to bombard the Gaza Strip, where strikes over the past few days have killed several Palestinians, according to local authorities and Palestinian news media.

Israeli forces struck a school building where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza on Monday, killing three people – a couple and their daughter – and wounding several others, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it carried out a strike on Hamas militants who were operating “a command and control centre” inside the school building and that it took steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians. The military’s claims could not be independently verified.

The strike was the latest in a series of attacks by Israel on schools across Gaza that it said were being used by Hamas militants as a command centre. Thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter in schools after being displaced by fighting across the enclave.

On Sunday, the Palestinian Civil Defence said seven people had been killed and several others had been wounded in an Israeli strike on a school building in Gaza City that was housing displaced people. On Saturday, Israel said it struck another school in Gaza City, killing 22 people, mostly women and children.

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In central Gaza, a mother and her four children were killed, and several others were wounded, in an Israeli strike on the family’s house in Deir al-Balah on Monday, the Civil Defence said. WAFA reported that strike coincided with Israeli helicopter fire and artillery shelling in parts of Gaza City.

Further south, two people were killed, including a child, in separate Israeli strikes east of Khan Younis, Mahmoud Basal, a Civil Defence spokesperson, said in a statement.

Mahmoud Fathi, 42, a resident of Khan Younis, said he heard an explosion Sunday night, and that when he went out to check what had happened in the morning he saw “a fairly large crater in the middle of the road,” but no blood.

“There was no warning, no leaflets, no calls at all,” Fathi said. He added: “It just happened, which is very common now. They just hit and move on and leave us to deal with it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.