At least 80 people were killed and nearly 50 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a converted school shelter in the Gaza Strip early Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war between Israel and Hamas. Witnesses said the strike took place as prayers were being held at a mosque inside the building.
It was the latest in what the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called “systematic attacks on schools” by Israel, with at least 21 attacks since July 4 that have left hundreds dead, including women and children.
“For many, schools are their last resort to find shelter and access to food and water,” the ministry said shortly after Saturday's attack.
The Israeli military confirmed it targeted the Tabin school in central Gaza City, saying it struck a Hamas headquarters inside the school, a claim Hamas denied.
Footage from the scene showed the first floor of a large building having its walls blown away. Shards of concrete and twisted metal were strewn across the blood-stained floor, along with clothing, furniture and other debris. Bodies, some wrapped in bloody cloths, had been placed shoulder-to-shoulder in makeshift graves to make way for new bodies.
People inspect the damage at a school in the Gaza Strip after it was reportedly hit by an Israeli airstrike. AP
Fadel Naeem, director of Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that 70 bodies and at least 10 body parts had been brought to the hospital. Gaza's Health Ministry said an additional 47 people were wounded.
Naeem said some of the injured suffered severe burns and many had lost limbs.
“We suffered some of the most serious injuries encountered during the war,” he said.
Abu Anas, a witness involved in the rescue operation, said the airstrike came without warning before sunrise as people were praying in the school's mosque.
“There were people praying, people doing laundry and people sleeping upstairs – among them children, women and old people,” he said, holding a rosary. “The missiles fell on them without warning. One hit, one hit. We found some bodies.”
Three missiles hit the two-story building – a mosque on the first floor and a school on the second – which was home to about 6,000 people fleeing the fighting, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run local government.
People inspect the damage at a school in the Gaza Strip after it was reportedly hit by an Israeli airstrike. AP
Many of the dead were unidentified and many of the victims were women and children, he said.
The UN previously said that as of July 6, 477 of Gaza's 564 schools had been directly hit or damaged in the war, adding that Israel was obligated under international law to provide safe shelter for displaced people.
“There is no justification for these massacres,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on X about the school attacks. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “appalled.”
Israeli intelligence suggested that about 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, including senior commanders, were planning to use the Tabeen school site to attack Israeli forces, Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a statement on X. Shoshani also questioned the casualty figures released by the Health Ministry.
Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq denied that there were any extremists inside the school.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza and claims it puts non-combatants at risk by using schools and residential areas as bases of operations. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has acknowledged that co-locating combatants and civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law, but said Israel must also abide by the legal principles of precaution and proportionality.
Israel also said the school is located next to a mosque that is being used as a shelter.
US, Egypt, Qatar call for 'urgent talks' with Israel and Hamas on ceasefire 04:16
But an Associated Press photographer said the mosque and classrooms were in one building, with the prayer hall on the first floor and the school above, and that the missile appeared to have penetrated through the classroom floor and reached the mosque below, where it exploded.
The attack came as US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their efforts to help the two sides reach a ceasefire agreement that could help ease rising tensions in the region following the assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip, said the attack on the school showed Israel was unwilling to reach a ceasefire and end the war. Neighboring Jordan condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of international law.” Qatar called it a “heinous crime” against civilians and called for an international investigation.
National Security Council spokesman Sean Sabet said the council was “deeply concerned by reports of civilian casualties” after the attack.
“We are in contact with the Israeli side, who say they have targeted Hamas officials, and are asking for more details,” Thabet said. “We know that Hamas uses schools as places of meetings and activities, but we have repeatedly and consistently maintained that Israel must take measures to minimize civilian casualties.”
“We mourn all the Palestinian civilians who have died in this conflict, including children, and too many civilians continue to be killed and injured. This underscores the urgency of a ceasefire and hostage agreement, and we are working tirelessly to achieve it,” he added.
Two separate airstrikes in central Gaza late on Friday killed at least 13 people, including three children and seven women, according to hospital officials. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balaf.
One bomb struck a home in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing seven people, all but one of them women, hospital officials said. Another struck a home in Deir al-Balah, killing six people, including a woman and her three children, the hospital said.
Palestinians mourn relatives who died in Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip, at a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024. Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
More than 1.9 million of Gaza's pre-war population of 2.3 million have been forced to flee their homes, fleeing multiple locations across the territory to escape attacks. Most are now crammed into tent camps across about 19 square miles of Gaza's coastline, with few basic services or supplies.
In the occupied West Bank, dozens of people gathered in Ramallah to protest the latest Israeli attack on a school.
“The message that must be conveyed to a paralyzed world, a motionless world, is: How long will the war last?” asked Muin Barghouti.