DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed at least 14 people, including two children, when it hit a U.N. school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in central Gaza on Wednesday, hospital officials said.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
Officials from Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said they had received 10 dead from the strike, and another four dead were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. At least one woman and two children were among those killed, and at least 18 people were wounded in the strike, hospital officials said.
One of the children was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defense agency, which works rescuing wounded and bodies after strikes, the agency said in a statement. Selmi hadn’t seen his daughter for 10 months, since he remained in north Gaza to keep working while his family fled south, the agency said.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders are living in Gaza’s schools.
The school hit Thursday — called the al-Jaouni Boys Preparatory School, one of the many in Gaza run by the U.N. agency for Palestinians UNWRA -- has been hit by multiple strikes over the course of the war.
Israel frequently bombs schools, saying they are being used by Hamas militants. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties from its strikes, saying its fighters base themselves and operate among civilians.
More than 90% of Gaza’s school buildings have been severely or partially damaged in strikes, and more than half the schools housing displaced people have been hit, according to a survey in July by the Education Cluster, a collection of aid groups led by UNICEF and Save the Children.
Israel’s 11-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, the territory’s Health Ministry said Wednesday. Israel launched its campaign vowing to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others.
The Associated Press
