The Tabeen school compound in central Gaza was hit early on Saturday morning, resulting in the deaths of at least 100. Government officials say they expect the death toll to rise.
ADVERTISEMENTAn Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza on early Saturday, killing at least 100 people and wounding scores more, according to the Hamas-run Gaza government.
The Israeli military acknowledged the strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City, claiming it hit a Hamas command centre within the school. Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the building.
The facility, like almost all of Gaza’s schools, has been used as a shelter for people who have been forced to flee their homes by the war.
Israeli intelligence indicated about 20 militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including senior commanders, were using the Tabeen school compound to plan attacks on Israeli forces, said IDF spokesman, Colonel Nadav Shoshani.
Shoshani posted on social media platform X that about 20 militants were using the Tabeen school compound to plan an attack on Israeli facilities.
Video from the scene showed walls blown out on the ground level of a large building. Concrete chunks and twisted metal lay atop the blood-soaked floor, along with clothing, toppled furniture and other debris. A blackened car with the windows blown out was covered in rubble.
The strike hit without warning in the early morning before sunrise as people were praying at a mosque inside the school, according to Abu Anas, a witness who worked to rescue people.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people," he said. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
Three missiles ripped through the school and the mosque inside, where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter from the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence first responders who operate under the Hamas-run local government.
Many of the dead were unrecognisable, he said, adding that he expected the death toll to rise. Many of the casualties were children, he said.
According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been directly hit or damaged in the war as of 6 July.
In June, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.
On Thursday, Israel’s military hit two schools sheltering displaced people in eastern Gaza City, killing at least 15 people, according to hospital officials.
Israel has blamed civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying the group endangers non-combatants by using schools and residential neighbourhoods as bases for operations and attacks.