Dozens of Palestinians were also injured in the bombing of a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, according to the government media office.
At least 16 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip, the Gaza government’s media office said, as Israel continued to pound the besieged coastal territory.
In a statement released Saturday, the Government Media Office said more than 75 people were also injured in the attack on the al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
“We condemn the Israeli occupation for its continued crimes and massacres against civilians, children and women,” he said.
The Nuseirat school, run by the UN refugee agency (UNRWA), is the latest school to be bombed by the Israeli army since the start of the Gaza war in early October.
At least 38,098 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7, and the besieged enclave faces severe shortages of food, water, medicine and other humanitarian supplies.
On Saturday, dozens of Palestinians, including five journalists, were killed as the Israeli army intensified its bombardment of the territory.
Videos taken at the scene of the attack on the UNRWA school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat show twisted pieces of metal in the collapsed building. A young boy can be seen digging through pools of blood on the ground.
Footage filmed at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital near Deir el-Balah, and verified by Tel Aviv Tribune’s Sanad news agency, also shows children and young people being evacuated from ambulances.
Among them were a girl with a bandaged arm, another with a bloodied face and a boy with a bandage on his head. Rescuers also tried to cover two bodies as they were rushed to the medical complex.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement that 50 injured Palestinians were taken to hospital.
In a statement shared on social media Saturday evening, the Israeli military said its air force “struck several terrorists” in the area of the al-Jaouni school.
According to Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hind Khoudary, hundreds of Palestinian families have sought refuge in the school after being forced to flee Israeli bombardments in other parts of Gaza.
The families “chose the central area (of the Gaza Strip) because the Israeli forces declared the central area to be a safe area,” Khoudary said.
“Everyone in the Gaza Strip feels that they are not safe wherever they go.”
Last month, an Israeli attack on a UN-linked school – also in the Nuseirat refugee camp – killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more, according to local authorities.
Musab, a 17-year-old survivor of the bombing of the UNRWA preparatory school for boys in Nuseirat in early June, told the UN agency that his father was killed after “missiles fell” on the family.
“Concrete slabs fell on us and suddenly we were surrounded by dead and wounded people. All my family members were injured or killed,” Musab said in a testimony shared by UNRWA.
“We were sleeping and at two in the morning missiles fell on us. They pulled us out of the rubble and all we saw was shrapnel, debris and dust. I am in shock and I can’t understand that my father is dead! How are we going to live?”
