Israel’s military continued to pound Gaza, killing 40 more Palestinians as international condemnation mounted over an Israeli attack that killed at least 18 people at a United Nations-run school, including six aid workers.
UN chief Antonio Guterres reiterated his demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza following the attack on al-Jaouni school, saying the “horrific violence” in the Palestinian enclave “must stop”.
About 25 percent of people wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza – at least 22,500 Palestinians – have “life-changing” injuries, according to the World Health Organization.
At least 41,118 people have been killed and 95,125 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is at least 1,139, while more than 200 people were taken captive.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
Officials from Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said they had received 10 dead from the strike, and another four dead were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah. At least one woman and two children were among those killed, and at least 18 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
One of the children was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defence agency, which does emergency rescue work after Israeli strikes, the agency said in a statement. Selmi hadn’t seen his daughter for 10 months, since he remained in north Gaza to keep working while his family fled south, the agency said.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders are living in Gaza’s schools.
The school hit Thursday – called the al-Jaouni Boys Preparatory School, one of the many in Gaza run by the UN agency for Palestinians UNWRA – has been hit by multiple strikes over the course of the war.
Israel frequently bombs schools, saying they are being used by Hamas militants. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties from its strikes, saying its fighters base themselves and operate among civilians.
Earlier Wednesday, a strike hit a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 11 people, including six brothers and sisters from the same family ranging in age from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties.
A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the civil defence agency. The civil defence agency said the home belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived the strike.
More than 90% of Gaza’s school buildings have been severely or partially damaged in strikes, and more than half the schools housing displaced people have been hit, according to a survey in July by the Education Cluster, a collection of aid groups led by UNICEF and Save the Children.
Israel’s 11-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, Gaza’s health ministry said Wednesday. Israel launched its campaign vowing to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others.
