At least 22 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday, Gaza’s health ministry said. The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas command center in what was a school.
Another 30 were wounded in the attack on the school in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, the ministry said in a statement. Most of the victims were women and children, the ministry said. It was not immediately clear to which hospital the dead and wounded were taken.
Video footage from The Associated Press showed dozens of people, including children, digging through the rubble of the building — ceilings had collapsed, walls had been ripped out, and a tangle of wires and metal rods was visible. Outside, others gathered around shrouded bodies. Some covered their faces as they wept for relatives killed in the strike.
“A rocket, a rocket from the plane hit us, and another rocket,” said Ferial Deloul, who is displaced. “We saw the whole world covered in smoke and stones and we saw people and children cut into pieces. … What should we do? What is our fault that this is happening to us?”
The Israeli military said earlier on Saturday that it had struck Hamas’ “command and control center, which was embedded in a complex that previously served” as a school. It said measures had been taken to limit harm to civilians, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance.
Also on Saturday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that five of its employees were killed and five others wounded by Israeli fire on the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.
Conflicting stories about the use of schools and hospitals
Since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli army has attacked several schools filled with tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. According to United Nations figures, 90% of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced by the conflict.
The military has consistently accused Hamas of operating out of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, UN facilities and hospitals. The conflicting accounts of the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of the nearly year-long conflict.
Earlier this month, an Israeli strike hit a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 14 people, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants who were planning attacks from the school.
In July, a girls’ school in Deir al-Balah was hit by Israeli airstrikes, killing at least 30 people sheltering there. The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command center used to launch attacks on its forces and store “large quantities of weapons.”
The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. They kidnapped another 250 and still hold about 100 hostages. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which makes no distinction between fighters and civilians.
Increasing tensions in the region
Tensions in the region rose Friday after an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Beirut in Lebanon killed dozens of people, including civilians and Ibrahim Akil, who led Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander in the group’s military wing, was also killed.
The attack came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the rockets.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel had attacked more than 400 rocket launchers in Lebanon on Saturday.
Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv and at several smaller protests around the country on Saturday night, demanding a ceasefire and the return of about 100 hostages still being held in Gaza. The protests, which take place every Saturday night, drew similar crowds to previous weeks despite the tense security situation on Israel’s northern border.
