Israeli strike on school kills five, Gaza rescuers say

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israel killed five Palestinians in an attack on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants.

Thousands of Palestinians displaced by the war, now in its 12th month, have sought shelter in the Shuhada al-Zeitun school, said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency in the Gaza Strip.

It was the latest school building housing displaced Gazans to be hit by an Israeli air strike, resulting in “five martyrs, including two children and a woman”, Bassal told AFP, adding that several other people were wounded.

AFP could not independently verify the toll.

Bassal said the bodies “were pulled from under the rubble after Israeli warplanes hit the Shuhada al-Zeitun school with two missiles”.

The Israeli military said it carried out a “precise strike” on the school compound which “was used by Hamas terrorists”.

The Israeli military has targeted several schools-turned-shelters in recent months, accusing Hamas of using them to hide its fighters among the civilian population — a charge denied by the Palestinian group.

A similar strike on Wednesday on the Al-Jawni school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat killed at least 18 people, according to the civil defence agency.

UN officials said six of the dead at Al-Jawni were staffers of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, with many seeking safety in school buildings.

Israel has killed at least 41,182 people in Gaza since October last year, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes Israelis killed in captivity.