Israeli airstrike on Gaza school kills more than 60 people, officials say
Representative image: Three rockets shot through the school and the mosque inside. (Photo: Bloomberg)
An Israeli airstrike hit a school in Gaza City that had been converted into a shelter early Saturday, killing more than 60 people, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war between Israel and Hamas.
The Israeli military acknowledged the attack and claimed it hit a Hamas command center inside the school. Hamas denied using the school as a command center.
The attack on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City also wounded 47 people, the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency Service said. The facility, like almost all schools in Gaza, has been used as a shelter for people forced to flee their homes by the war.
According to Abu Anas, a witness who helped rescue people, the strike happened unexpectedly in the early morning, just before sunrise, while people were praying in a mosque inside the school.
There were people praying, there were people washing themselves, and there were people sleeping upstairs, including children, women and old people,” he said. The rocket fell on them without warning. The first rocket, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.
Three rockets hit the school and the mosque inside, where about 6,000 displaced people were seeking shelter because of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense that operates under the Hamas-led government.
Many of the dead were unrecognizable, he said, adding that he expected the death toll to rise. Many of the victims were women and children, he said.
As of July 6, 477 of Gaza’s 564 schools had been directly hit or damaged by the war, according to the United Nations. In June, an Israeli attack on a school in central Gaza housing displaced Palestinians killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, local health officials said.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza, saying the group endangers civilians by using schools and residential areas as bases for operations and attacks.
In its statement on Saturday, the Israeli military claimed that Hamas militants used the school as a base to plan attacks on Israeli troops, without providing evidence. It said the school was next to a mosque that served as a shelter for Gaza City residents.
The strike came after US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their calls for a ceasefire between the two sides, which could ease tensions in the region following the killings of Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
Egypt, which borders Gaza and is a key mediator, said the attack on the school shows that Israel has no intention of reaching a ceasefire and ending the war.
The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which Gaza-based militants swept into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others.
More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million have been forced from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives. Most are now crammed into ramshackle tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) on Gaza’s coast.
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First publication: Aug 10, 2024 | 1:50 PM IST