No less than 12 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school hosting displaced people in Gaza, Hamas’s Civil Defense Authority said.
A spokesman said rescue teams were trying to find a number of missing people who were believed to be trapped under the rubble of the Mustafa Hafez school in the western neighborhood of Rimal.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas command and control center at the school and took measures to mitigate the risk of civilian harm.
Earlier, it announced that troops had found the bodies of six Israeli hostages held in the Khan Younis area.
The men were among 251 people kidnapped by Hamas-led gunmen during the October 7 attacks in southern Israel last year, in which about 1,200 people were also killed.
Israel launched an air and ground campaign to destroy Hamas in response, during which more than 40,170 people were killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas territory’s health ministry.
Women and children can be heard screaming and seen running from the dust-covered Mustafa Hafez school in a video posted on social media showing the immediate aftermath of the strike on Tuesday morning.
The camera then pans to the ruins on the ground, next to the completely flattened remains of a two-story building.
“We were sitting safely, we did not see the explosion,” witness Umm Mohammed later told Reuters news agency.
“The people are gone, they’re dead. They are under the rubble.”
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said in the afternoon that rescue teams had recovered the bodies of up to 12 people.
He said the attack had targeted the entire wing of the school, where he said 700 displaced people live.
The Israeli military said the jets carried out a “a precise strike on terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command and control centre” that was embedded in the school and used to plan and launch attacks against its troops and Israel.
“Before the attack, numerous measures were taken to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, including the use of precision munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” it added.
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of violating international law by operating inside civilian infrastructure and exploiting Gaza’s civilian population, allegations Hamas has previously denied.
Earlier in the month, the United Nations Human Rights Office condemned what it called the “increasing frequency” of Israeli attacks on schools that host displaced people and accused the Israeli army of carrying out with apparent disregard for the high number of civilian deaths.
The warning came after at least 70 Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on the al-Taba’een school in Gaza City, according to the director of a local hospital.
The Israeli military said the school had served as an active military installation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and that it had confirmed the identities of the 31 “terrorists” who were killed.
The UN said at the time that it was at least the 21st attack on a school shelter since July 4 and left at least 274 dead.
Source: BBC News
