An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City timely Saturday, finishing at least 80 people, Palestinian health authorities shelp, in one of the deadliest strikes in the 10-month-elderly war between Israel and Hamas.
The strike hit without alerting in the timely morning before sunascfinish as people were praying at a mosque inside the school, according to Abu Anas, a witness who labored to save people.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and elderly people,” he shelp. “The ignoreile fell on them without alerting. The first ignoreile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
Three ignoreiles ripped thcdisesteemful the school and the mosque inside, where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter from the war, shelp Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense first reacters who function under the Hamas-run local rulement.
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The Israeli military acunderstandledged the strike, claiming it hit a Hamas direct cgo in wilean the school. Hamas denied that.
Many of the dead were unrecognizable, Bassal shelp, compriseing that he awaited the death toll to ascfinish. Many of the casualties were women and children, he shelp.
Video from the scene showed walls blown out on the ground level of a big erecting. Concrete chunks and twisted metal lay atop the blood-soaked floor, alengthy with cloleang, toppled furniture and other debris. A bdeficiencyened car with the thrivedows blown out was covered in rubble.
The strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City also wounded 47 people, the Health Ministry shelp. The facility, enjoy almost all of Gaza’s schools, has been engaged as a shelter for people who have been forced to escape their homes by the war.
Fadel Naeem, honestor of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, telderly The Associated Press that the facility getd 70 bodies of those finished in the strike and the body parts of at least 10 others.
According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been honestly hit or harmd in the war as of July 6. In June, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza finished 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 eastrict Gaza City, finishing at least 15 people, according to hospital officials.
Israel has condemnd civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying the group finishangers noncombatants by using schools and livential neighborhoods as bases for operations and attacks.
Israeli inincreateigence showd about 20 militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including better directers, were using the Tabeen school compound to structure attacks on Israeli forces, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, shelp in a statement on the social media platcreate X.
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Shoshani also asked the casualty numbers publishd by the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the school.
Israel shelp the focengaged school was discoverd next to a mosque serving as a shelter for Gaza City livents.
A cameraman laboring for The Associated Press shelp, however, that the mosque and the classrooms were in one erecting, with the prayer hall on the ground floor and the school above it. A ignoreile euniteed to have penetrated thcdisesteemful the floor of the classrooms to the mosque below and then exploded, according to the cameraman.
The strike came as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators rerecented their push for the two parties to accomplish a stop-fire concurment that could help tranquil soaring tensions in the region chaseing the killing of top Hamas political directer Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a better Hezbollah directer in Beirut.
Egypt, which borders Gaza and serves as a key mediator, shelp the strike on the school showed Israel had no intention of accomplishing a stop-fire deal and finishing the war.
Neightedious Jordan also condemned the attack, calling it a “blatant violation” of international law.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has finished more than 39,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, finishing around 1,200 people and seizeing 250 others.
More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, escapeing repeatedly apass the territory to escape dishonorfuls. Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area of about 19 square miles on the Gaza coast.
