More than 100 Palestinians were killed and dozens were injured in an Israeli strike on a Gaza school sheltering people with disabilities, the Gaza government said on Saturday. The strikes hit the school when people were offering dawn prayers. However, there was no immediate information from the Gaza health authorities.
According to the reports of the Gaza civil defense agency, the death toll from the strike has reached more than 90. Videos from the sites revealed body parts shattered on the ground and babies being carried away. Empty food tins lay in a puddle of blood, and burned furniture lay amid the debris.
“So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are unidentified remains,” said the spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense, Mahmoud Bassal, in a televised news conference.
However, the Israeli military, in a statement, said that its air force targeted a command and control center where Hamas fighters were allegedly hiding. Meanwhile, Hamas said the strike was a horrific crime and a serious escalation. A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabih Abu Rudeineh, urged Israel’s ally Washington to put an end to the “blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”
Egypt’s foreign minister strongly condemned the strike and said that the killing of Gaza civilians showed Israel had no intention to end the war.
The image released by AFPTV from the scene showed a large building with a courtyard where debris lay inside and out. The image showed a part of the structure that appeared to be a mosque, the upper part of the structure was charred.
However, Israel alleges that Hamas embeds among Gaza’s civilians, operating from within schools, hospitals, and designated humanitarian zones. An Israeli military spokesperson claimed that around 20 Hamas fighters, along with Jihad fighters, were operating out of the school.
“The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on X
He added that casualty figures given by the Gaza media office “do not align with the information held by the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces), the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike”.
