Israeli strike kills more than 100 Palestinians at Gaza school

Target was Hamas command and control centre, Israel says

The damage after an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza city on Saturday. AFP

Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza

An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza city has killed more than 100 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others, local authorities and rescuers said.

Israeli planes hit the Al Tabaeen school in the east of Gaza city with three missiles as people were performing fajr, or dawn prayers, local authorities said.

“Rescue and civil defence teams were unable to retrieve the bodies,” the Wafa state news agency said. The death toll could rise, it added.

Most of the injured were taken to Al Ahli Al Arab Hospital and were “in a very serious condition”.

“Our crews have so far recovered more than 100 martyrs, with more than 60 still missing,” Dr Mohammed Al Mogheer, a civil defence official, told The National. “Additionally, more than 150 injured individuals have been rescued so far.”

Some of the bodies arriving at the hospital were damaged beyond recognition.

The school was sheltering more than 2,400 people, he said.

He said the Israeli strike “violates all international laws”.

The attack was carried out “using three missiles, some of which are believed to be incendiary bombs”, Dr Al Mogheer said.

“Each of the three missiles was of the type Mk-84 which weighs 2,000 pounds [907kg].”

According to a civil defence statement, first responders had to put out fires before retrieving the bodies of people killed and rescuing survivors.

The statement said there were “large quantities” of unidentified bodies and body parts at the Al Ahli hospital, adding: “Families are facing difficulty in identifying their sons.”

People were performing prayers on the ground floor of the school, while the first floor housed displaced women, Gaza's government media office said.

Israel's military disputed the death toll from the attack, saying that the accounts from Palestinian officials were “exaggerated and do not coincide with the information available in the IDF, the exact weapons used and the accuracy of the hit”.

According to the Gaza civil defence, Israel has targeted 13 shelters so far this month.

Fatah, which controls the occupied West Bank, said the attack on Saturday “represents the height of terrorism and criminality” by Israel.

“By committing these massacres, it confirms beyond any doubts its efforts to exterminate our people through a policy of cumulative killing,” it said.

The Israeli army said its air force struck a Hamas command centre “embedded in the Al Tabaeen school and located adjacent to a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for the residents of Gaza city”.

“Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and intelligence information,” the army said.

Israel has struck six schools in a week in Gaza city, Wafa said.

The air strike on Saturday is one of the deadliest of the Israel-Gaza war and came days before the expected resumption of talks to end the conflict.

The local health ministry said on Saturday that more than 39,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7, when Hamas killed about 1,200 people and seized about 240 hostages in attacks on southern Israel.

Leaders of the US, Qatar and Egypt have urged Israel and Hamas to resume Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha or Cairo next week, despite deepening mistrust following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and the appointment of hardliner Yahya Sinwar as his successor.

The call, supported by countries in the region including the UAE and Turkey, comes amid fears of a full-scale war in the Middle East, as Israel awaits Iran’s retaliation for the killing of Mr Haniyeh on its soil and Hezbollah’s avowed “punishment” for the assassination of its senior military commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut last week.

Its apparent aim is to create momentum for stopping the devastating war in the Palestinian territory, diffuse tension across the region and halt the violence before it escalates.