An Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza killed at least 40 people and injured 74 others on Thursday, according to the United Nations, Hamas and Palestinian officials – although Israel defended the attack and accused militants of hiding at the site.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, led by Hamas, said in a post on Facebook that 14 children and nine women were among those killed in an attack on the Al-Nusseirat Boys Preparatory school.
The Hamas-run media agency accused Israel of bombing several rooms of the school, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp, near the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. The school is run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
UNRWA said in a post on social media platform X that the school was hit without prior warning. Philippe LazzariniCommissioner General of UNRWA, said that “the school was hosting 6,000 displaced persons when the school was hit.”
“Attacking, shelling or using UN buildings for military purposes is a blatant disregard of international humanitarian law,” he added in another post.
Lazzarini said that since the war between Hamas and Israel began last fall, more than 180 UNRWA buildings have been hit and more than 450 refugees have been killed.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused Hamas of embedding itself in the UNRWA school and claimed that fighters who invaded southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 250 or so hostages, were hiding at the site .
The IDF claimed it was a “precise attack on a Hamas complex” in the school.
“The terrorists sent terror from the area around the school, exploiting it and using it as a hideout,” the Israeli military wrote in a Telegram post. “Several terrorists who planned to carry out terrorist attacks and promote terrorist activities against IDF forces in the near future were eliminated during the attack.”
“A number of steps were taken before the attack to reduce the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians during the attack, including conducting aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information,” she added.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Israel faces international pressure to halt its campaign to destroy Hamas, but the IDF continues its operations across Gaza, with a renewed focus on the central and southern parts of the small coastal strip.
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