Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building

AFP | Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

Gaza's civil defense agency reported that an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter on Saturday killed eight people, including two children. The Israeli military claimed the strike targeted Hamas.

Agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal confirmed that the victims of the Israeli shelling at the Halwa school in Jabalia, northern Gaza, included two children and two women. Bassal also mentioned that the attack injured about 30 people, including 19 children, and that the Halwa school housed "thousands of displaced people."

The Israeli military, in a statement, confirmed it had carried out the strike on the facility. It said the air force targeted a "command-and-control centre" that had previously been the Halwa school, alleging that Hamas used the building for planning and executing attacks.

This attack is part of a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has continued for over 14 months.

Since the war began, at least 46,537 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians, have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza, according to data from Gaza's health ministry, which the United Nations has acknowledged as reliable.

The war was triggered by the October 7 attack, which killed 1,208 Israelis, most of them civilians, based on official Israeli figures.

A previous strike on a UN-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international condemnation after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, confirmed that six of its staff were among the dead.