AT LEAST 16 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a UN-run school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip, the Gaza government media office said, as Israel continued to pound the besieged coastal territory.
In a statement on Saturday (6/7), the Palestinian government media office said more than 75 people were also wounded in the attack on the al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza. “We condemn the Israeli occupation [atas] committing ongoing crimes and massacres once morest civilians, children and women,” he said.
The Nuseirat facility, run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), is the latest school to be bombed by the Israeli military since the Gaza war began in early October. At least 38,098 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7 and the besieged enclave faces shortages of food, water, medicine and other humanitarian supplies.
Dozens of Palestinians, including five journalists, were killed as the Israeli military stepped up bombardment of the area. Video footage taken at the scene of the attack on an UNRWA school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat showed twisted metal in the collapsed building. A young boy was seen sifting through a pool of blood on the ground.
Footage taken at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital near Deir el-Balah and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad news agency also showed children and young people being rushed from ambulances. They included a girl with a bandaged arm, another with a bloody face and a boy with a bandage on his head. Emergency workers 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 wounded Palestinians were taken to hospital. In a statement shared on social media late Saturday, the Israeli army said its air force struck several terrorists in the al-Jaouni school area.
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Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said hundreds of Palestinian families had sought shelter at the school following they were forced to flee Israeli bombardment in other parts of Gaza.
The families chose the central area [Jalur Gaza] because the Israeli army said the central area is a safe zone. Everyone in the Gaza Strip believes that they are not safe, wherever they go,” Khoudary was quoted as saying by Aljazeera, Sunday (7/7).
Last month, an Israeli attack on a UN-affiliated school – also in the Nuseirat refugee camp – killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens more, according to local authorities. Musab, a 17-year-old survivor of the bombing of UNRWA’s Nuseirat Preparatory School for Boys in early June, told the UN agency that his father was killed following a hail of missiles hit his family.
“Slabs of concrete fell on us, and suddenly, we were surrounded by dead and wounded people. All my family members were wounded or killed,” Musab said in a testimony shared by UNRWA.
“We were sleeping, and at two in the morning, missiles rained down on us. They pulled us out from under the rubble, and all we saw was shrapnel, debris, and dust. I was in shock and mightn’t comprehend that my father was dead! How were we going to live?”
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