An Israeli airstrike on a school being used as a shelter for displaced civilians in Gaza City killed at least 30 people and injured many others on Sunday, according to reports from the Palestinian emergency response agency and local news outlets. This incident marks the third assault on a school within a span of four days.
The attack on the al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools on Sunday came on the same day as an assault on a camp for displaced people in a hospital in central Gaza, which reportedly killed at least five people, BBC reported.
On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes on the Hamama and al-Huda schools in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood killed at least 17 people and injured numerous others. Two days earlier, on Thursday, an Israeli air raid on a school in the Shujayea neighbourhood claimed the lives of 15 individuals.
The majority of the casualties on Sunday were women and children, according to Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, as reported by CNN. Rescue efforts are ongoing with the hope of finding survivors beneath the rubble of buildings that had been used as shelters for displaced families, Basal said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency have claimed responsibility for the strike, stating that their target was “terrorists operating within Hamas command and control centres” located in the schools. The IDF did not respond to CNN’s inquiries about the number of Hamas members and civilians killed, nor did they address whether civilians were warned prior to the strike.
Palestinian officials informed CNN that no warnings were issued before the airstrikes. Basal noted, “If a warning had been given, the number of deaths would have been lower.”
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Moath Kahlout spoke to Palestinians who survived the Israeli attack on the Hamama school on Saturday in Gaza City that killed 17 people.
Raida Al Khodary said she and her family have been displaced roughly 10 times, moving from one school to another. She said there is “no safe school, no safe place, no safe street, and we don’t know where to go”.
She added that the world should not close its eyes and instead find a solution: “Are we meant to be tortured till the end of our lives?”
These bring to at least 11 the number of schools in Gaza to be struck since 6 July, killing around 150 people, based on a tally of tolls previously given by officials in the Hamas-run territory, AFP reported.
Israeli military action in the strip has since October killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and injured over 90,000, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. As of early July, nearly two million people had been displaced in Gaza – almost the entire population, according to figures from the United Nations.
