At least 14 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN-run school in the central Gaza Strip where displaced families live, hospital officials and the Hamas-run civil protection agency said.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a “precise strike against terrorists” and was planning attacks from the al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, adding that it had taken measures to limit harm to civilians.
According to the Civil Protection, several women and children have died, including the daughter of one of the rescuers.
The UN condemned the strike, which it said was the fifth at the same school since the war began 11 months ago.
In July, 16 people were reportedly killed in a strike According to the Israeli military, several buildings at the school used by Hamas fighters were targeted.
Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United Kingdom and other countries, denies using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.
Israeli forces launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage back to Gaza.
More than 41,080 people have been killed since then, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
Video footage from the aftermath of Wednesday’s airstrike shows hundreds of people inspecting the badly damaged ground floor of a wing of the al-Jaouni school, as well as the remains of an adjacent building that appears to have been destroyed.
Other footage showed ambulances taking injured men, women and children, reportedly wounded in the attack, to al-Aqsa hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah.
A medical source at al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat camp told AFP news agency that nine people killed in the attack had been taken there and six others had been taken to al-Aqsa hospital.
According to the Associated Press news agency, al-Awda received ten bodies and al-Aqsa received another four, including one woman and two children.
Civil Protection spokesman Mahmoud Bassal also reported that 14 people had died.
In a post on Telegram, the agency identified one of the dead as the daughter of one of its rescuers, Momin Salmi. It said he had not seen Shadia for 10 months because he had remained in northern Gaza while his wife and their eight children fled south.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that aircraft had “carried out a targeted strike against terrorists operating in a Hamas command center” located in the Al-Jaouni school.
“Numerous steps have been taken to reduce the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precision munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” the report said.
“This is a new example of the systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organization Hamas, in violation of international law.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office reported that about 5,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack and accused Israel of a “brutal massacre”.
There was no immediate comment from the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), which ran the school in Al-Jaouni before the war.
The UN condemned “all air strikes targeting civilians and UN facilities”.
“Our policy is clear: UN buildings must never be the target of attacks, nor must UN buildings be used by any group or force to conduct military activities,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
UNRWA has said that nearly 70% of its schools in Gaza have been hit in the past 11 months, with many severely damaged, the agency said.
The agency also reported that at least 563 displaced people were killed and 1,790 others injured while staying in schools and other institutions.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military announced that two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight others were injured in a helicopter crash in southern Gaza.
The helicopter was on its way to transport a seriously wounded soldier to a hospital for medical treatment and crashed while landing in the Rafah area, a statement said.
“A preliminary investigation conducted indicates that the crash was not caused by enemy fire. The cause of the crash is still under investigation,” it added.
