THE GUARDIAN
Israel bombed a UN school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in central Gaza in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing at least 33 people including 23 women and children, according to hospital records and an eyewitness.
Missiles hit the second and third floors of the al-Sardi school in Deir al-Balah, where the UN said about 6,000 people were living. Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, called for an investigation into the attack, with scores also reported injured.
The Israeli military said it targeted “20 or 30” Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who took part in the 7 October attack and were using the school as an operations centre. The military spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner said he was not aware of any civilian casualties.
Ayman Rashed, a shelter resident displaced from Gaza City, said there had been families in the classrooms that were hit, and he helped carry five bodies, including an old man and two children, out from the wreckage.
“It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” he told the Associated Press (AP), adding that the blast had shattered one child’s skull open.
Many of the dead were taken to al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, where their bodies were lined up in the courtyard, videos on social media showed. Fourteen children and nine women were among the dead, according to an AP reporter and hospital records.
The same night, six victims of another Israeli strike on a house in the area were brought to the morgue at the hospital. Even before the deaths early on Thursday, medics at al-Aqsa were already struggling to deal with a wave of casualties from a new Israeli offensive in the area, the charity Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) said.
Eight months into a war launched with a vow to “destroy Hamas”, the militant group has proved resilient across north and central Gaza. Israeli troops redeployed to the area are facing “guerilla warfare”, Lerner said, with small cells using rocket-propelled grenades, small arms and explosive devices to attack.
He said one of those units was using the school as a command and control centre, without providing evidence. He also said Israel had taken steps to protect civilians, including calling off a planned strike on the same site twice in previous days.
“[Hamas] understand that we are cautious and careful around UN facilities, and they are trying effectively to use the UN facilities and building as their iron dome,” he said, referring to Israel’s missile defence system. “They will not have a safe place.”
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