Israeli forces bombed another school converted into a shelter in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 18 people, including six staff members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Witnesses said Wednesday’s attack on the al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp left women and children dead, while UNRWA said the casualties among its staff represented the “highest toll” in a single incident during the 11-month war.
According to UNRWA, around 12,000 displaced Palestinians, mostly women and children, were sheltering in al-Jaouni when Israeli forces carried out two airstrikes on the building.
The director of the UN-run shelter was among those killed.
UNRWA said Wednesday’s attacks marked the fifth time the school had been hit since Israel began its war on Gaza last October.
“No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared,” he said in a message posted on X.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the scene of the attack, said there was a “tremendous amount of destruction” at the school as the smell of blood permeated the air.
“We can see huge holes in the wall and we can see that people are looking for anything they can salvage after the destruction of this UN-run shelter,” he said. “The scale of the destruction is unprecedented and… piles of rubble and earth cover this whole area.”
Abu Azzoum said the school was “hit at a time when people were waiting for food” and that rescuers were “digging through the rubble with their bare hands due to a lack of basic equipment.”
“Women and children reduced to pieces”
A Palestinian woman who survived the attack said she lost her six children.
“Are these children terrorists? May God punish them. The Israelis destroyed our home, killed and starved our people; women are widows and children are orphans,” an unidentified woman told Tel Aviv Tribune in a video testimony.
“Six children… What crime, what evil have these innocent children committed?”
Another survivor said the section of the school that was hit was “only for women.”
“Suddenly there was a huge explosion… Women and children were torn to pieces. We rushed to see our children but found them torn to pieces,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune in a video testimony.
“This is the fifth time – the fifth time – that the school has been bombed by Israeli warplanes. It is supposed to be a safe haven,” he added.
The Israeli military confirmed carrying out the attack but said it targeted a Hamas command and control center. Without providing evidence, it said the compound had been used to plan and carry out attacks against Israeli forces in Gaza and against Israel.
Al-Jaouni is at least the sixth school to be targeted by Israeli bombings or airstrikes since August 1. Tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders have taken refuge in Gaza schools.
On August 1, at least 15 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the Dalal al-Mughrabi school in Gaza City, while on August 3, 16 others were killed in the bombing of the Hamama school, also in Gaza City.
On August 4, at least 30 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Nassr and Hassan Salama schools, west of Gaza City, while on August 8, at least 17 people were killed in attacks on Abdul Fattah Hamouda and az-Zahra schools, also located in Gaza City.
On August 10, more than 100 people were killed and 150 others injured after Israeli forces shelled al-Tabin school, east of Gaza City.
“Totally unacceptable”
William Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington office, told Tel Aviv Tribune that Israeli forces had targeted a total of 190 UN-run facilities during the war, “many of them more than once.” This was despite the agency sharing their GPS coordinates with the Israeli military.
He lamented the deaths of his colleagues, saying that Israel’s war on Gaza appeared to have “absolutely no end.”
“Six colleagues lost their lives today, bringing the death toll of UNRWA staff in this conflict to 220, the highest in UN history,” Deere told Tel Aviv Tribune. But “our staff are on the front lines and they are not going to back down, they are not going to stop doing their jobs,” he added.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced the lack of accountability for the killings of aid workers in Gaza and called for effective investigations into their deaths.
“We have courts, but we see that the decisions of the courts are not respected, and it is this kind of legal vacuum that is totally unacceptable and also requires serious reflection,” Guterres told Reuters news agency.
The killings in al-Jaouni come as Israeli forces continue attacks in other parts of the Gaza Strip, including on a house in southern Khan Younis. At least 11 people, including six siblings from the same family, were killed in the attack. Their ages ranged from 21 months to 21 years, according to the European hospital that received the victims.
Israeli warplanes also attacked a group of people waiting to buy bread outside a bakery west of Gaza City, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense, killing at least three people and wounding seven others.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the 11-month-old Israeli offensive against Gaza has killed at least 41,084 people and wounded 95,029 others.