DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.

Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.

“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.

The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.

Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.

Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.

Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.

Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.

Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.

The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.

“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.

The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.

Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.

Much of the wood waste in the metro area is sent to a processing site near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, where it is stored before being burned to produce energy at the St. Paul Cogeneration plant downtown.

Cogeneration provides power to about half of downtown and was originally built to manage elm-tree waste in response to Dutch elm disease. The plant burns approximately 240,000 tons of wood each year, according to Michael Auger, senior vice president of District Energy in St. Paul.

Jim Calkins, a certified landscape horticulturalist who has been involved in discussions about the problem, said he thinks using wood for energy is the most logical solution.

“The issue is, we don’t have enough facilities to be able to handle that, at least in the Twin Cities,” Calkins said. “So there has to be dollars to support transportation to get the wood to those places, or in some cases, to upgrade some of those facilities such that they are able to burn wood.”

Plans are in place to convert Koda Energy in Shakopee to burn ash wood, which could potentially handle around 40,000 tons of wood waste, but that would take around two years to establish, according to Klapperich.

In some areas of the state, cities have resorted to burning excess wood waste because they felt they had no other option. Open burning wood releases a lot of carbon into the air, Klapperich said.