PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday at least three people were killed and 10 children injured in the latest Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter, while the Israeli military reported it hit a Hamas command centre.
“Three bodies were pulled from the rubble and 15 wounded were taken to hospital after the Israeli bombing of the Salah al-Din school in Gaza City,“ a statement from the agency said.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 10 of the injured were children.
A father told AFP his child was killed in the strike while playing in the schoolyard.
“We ran to see, and saw my son dead,“ he said without giving his name.
“What did this child do to deserve this? He had no missile, no plane, no tank.”
Witness Omar Abu Charar told AFP that he went to the scene after hearing “an enormous explosion” and seeing smoke.
“I found people running and screaming, some of them carrying bleeding children,“ he said.
“Ambulances quickly arrived.”
The Israeli military said in a statement the air force “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control centre” located in the school compound.
“Hamas operatives used the compound as a hideout and a base to plan and execute attacks against IDF (Israel Defense Forces) troops and the State of Israel,“ a statement said.
– ‘Unbearable’ –
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, denounced Wednesday’s strike, saying that “some were burnt to death” in the “horrific attack on one of our UNRWA schools in Gaza City”.
“Is there any humanity left?” Lazzarini wrote on social media platform X.
“Gaza is no place for children anymore. They are the first casualty of this merciless war.
“We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. Enough. A ceasefire is beyond over due.”
The United Nations says Israel has struck at least 23 schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza since July 4, while the Israeli military accuses Hamas of using the schools as bases for attacks or command posts, which the Palestinian movement denies.
On Tuesday, Bassal told AFP that a strike on the Mustafa Hafiz school in Gaza City killed at least 12 people.
The Israeli military said that school, too, was a Hamas command centre.
Earlier this month Israel struck the Al-Tabieen school, also in Gaza City, an attack the civil defence agency said killed 93 Palestinians, while the military said 31 militants died.
Tens of thousands of displaced people have taken refuge in schools since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 after Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 105 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive against Hamas has killed at least 40,223 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
Most of the dead in Gaza are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.
