At least 22 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack that hit a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The Palestinian Civil Defense Agency in Gaza confirmed that Israel targeted the Zeitoun school in the eastern part of Gaza City on Saturday.
The victims included 13 children, six women and a three-month-old baby, the government’s media office said in a statement, adding that Israel had committed a “horrific massacre.”
At least 30 people were injured, including several with serious burns, the ministry said. Two people are still missing.
Civil protection spokesman Mahmud Bassal said thousands of displaced people had sought refuge in the school.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the air force had “carried out a precise strike against terrorists operating inside a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City.”
He said the target was “embedded inside” al-Falah school, which is adjacent to the Zeitoun school buildings.
Israeli forces regularly accuse the group of using civilian facilities for military purposes, something Hamas denies.
It was the latest in a series of Israeli raids on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders have taken refuge.
A strike on the UN-run al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 sparked international outcry after the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) said six of its employees were among the 18 reported dead.
According to the media office, Israel has bombed 181 displacement and shelter centers so far.
William Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington office, told Tel Aviv Tribune earlier this month that Israeli forces had targeted a total of 190 UN-run facilities during the war, “many of them more than once”. This is despite the fact that the agency shared its GPS coordinates with the Israeli military.
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.
At least 41,391 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since last October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, including 119 deaths in the past 72 hours.
As of Saturday, 95,760 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, following the attack carried out by Hamas on Israel on October 7.
