At least 100 people were killed and dozens more wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City on Saturday, medical and security sources in the Palestinian territory said.
The news agency of the Hamas-controlled government in Gaza reported that the Israeli army attacked the Al-Tabeen school, which was being used as a shelter for displaced people, during Muslim morning prayers.
According to the ministry, dozens of victims were burned alive in the attack.
Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera also reported more than 100 deaths, citing the Palestinian civil defense agency.
The information could not be independently verified.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported earlier that the country’s air force “precisely targeted Hamas terrorists operating from a Hamas command center located in the Al-Taba’een school and next to a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for Gaza City residents.”
According to the IDF, the center served as a “hiding place for Hamas terrorists and commanders” and “a number of attacks on Israel were planned and carried out from that location.”
Militants were reportedly hit in the attack. The Israeli military did not provide information on casualties in the statement it posted on Telegram.
The military later said that “numerous steps have been taken to reduce the risk of harm to civilians,” and accused the Palestinian militant organization Hamas of “systematically [violating] international law and [operating] from civilian shelters, brutally exploiting civilian populations and institutions as human shields for their terrorist activities.”
The information could not be independently verified.
After the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, school activities in the closed coastal area were suspended. Most schools now serve as emergency shelters for displaced people.
About 85% of the Gaza Strip’s population has been forced to leave their homes as a result of the conflict.
The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented massacre that saw more than 1,200 people killed in Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7 and 250 hostages brought to the Gaza Strip.
More than 39,600 people have been killed in the Israeli air and ground offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry.
Israel has been criticized internationally for the high number of civilian casualties and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza
