Dozens killed following Israeli airstrike on school in Gaza City

10 August 2024, 08:53

Dozens of people have died following an Israeli airstrike hit a school being used as a shelter in Gaza City on Saturday.

According to Palestinian health authorities, the strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City wounded 47 people.

Israel confirmed it had struck the target, describing it's military hit a Hamas command centre within the school but is yet to provide evidence.

It is the latest Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war started some 10 months ago.

According to Gaza's civil defence agency, the strike in the Daraj district killed at least 90 people and injured dozens more.

"The death toll is now between 90 to 100 and there are dozens more wounded," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP news agency.

These figures are yet to be verified.

Israel's military said it had "precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control centre embedded in the Al-Taba'een school".

It follows statements from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) earlier in the week which said military had targeted Hamas "command and control centres" located inside two schools in Gaza City.

The conflict follows Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people during the 7 October attacks on an Israeli music festival, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.

Medics have not yet been able to reach all the bodies, authorities have said.

The facility, like almost all of Gaza Strip's schools, has been used as a shelter for people who have been forced to flee their homes by the war.

The strike hit without warning in the early morning before sunrise as people were praying at a mosque inside the school, according to Abu Anas, a witness who worked to rescue people.

"There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people," he said.

"The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts."

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Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, said three missiles ripped through the school and the mosque inside, where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter from the war.

Many of the dead were unrecognisable, he said, adding that he expected the death toll to rise. Many of the casualties were women and children, he said.

According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged in the war as of July 6.

In June, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.

The strike came as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for the two parties to achieve a ceasefire agreement that could help calm soaring tensions in the region following the assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

The war was triggered by Hamas' October 7 attack, in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others, according to the enclave's Health Ministry.

More than 1.9 million of Gaza's pre-war population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives.

Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometres (19 square miles) on the Gaza coast.