Israel has again attacked a school in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza. At least 10 Palestinians were killed in the brutal attack. Many more people were injured.
Besides, three more were killed in the Israeli attack on Beit Hanun. Al Jazeera reported this information on Tuesday (October 22).
The media said the Israeli military launched “artillery fire” at Jabalia Preparatory School, killing at least 10 people and injuring 30, Wafa news agency reported.
The school, located in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, was being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians.
Israeli strikes have hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in north Gaza’s besieged Jabalia. Footage from the scene showed the bodies of children wearing backpacks motionless on the ground amongst other victims.Wafa said the Israeli military bombed a shelter for displaced Palestinians in the center of Beit Hanoun, another town in northern Gaza, killing three and wounding several others.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 640 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its offensive in northern Gaza 17 days ago.
Meanwhile, Anadolu news agency reported in a separate report that at least 29 people were killed in heavy Israeli attacks in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, according to medical sources.
Artillery shelling targeted a school used as a shelter for displaced civilians near Birket Abu Rashid in Jabalia, killing seven people and injuring scores, a medical source said.
According to witnesses, civilians gathered at the UN-run Chrism school under Israeli military orders. At that time an Israeli tank fired shells at them.
In addition, six people were killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting a group of civilians collecting water in Jabalia al-Balad in northern Gaza, paramedics said.
Another medical source said four more Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike near Al-Yemen Al-Said Hospital in Jabalia camp.
Also, 9 Palestinians were killed and many others injured in Israeli shelling at a house near Birket Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza City.
Gaza’s health ministry said footage showed the victims were civilians and most of them were children. The BBC verified a video that shows children among the injured.
Gaza’s civil defence service said the school was sheltering displaced people. Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the report the school was being used for military purposes was “false” and “displaced, sick and wounded people, most of whom were women and children” were killed.
Witness Mustafa Rafati told the BBC the explosion shook his body and he fell from the blow. Afraid, he said he ran inside the school and saw body parts in a “terrifying scene.”
“I was shocked,” he said.
Verified video from the scene shows a chaotic situation, with people running around a compound covered in rubble. Men carry two bloodied children in their arms while a woman hugs another, and a group carries an injured man on a stretcher. A body lies on the ground covered in a blanket.
The IDF said that before the strike it took steps to reduce the risk to civilians “including the use of appropriate munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.
Gaza’s health ministry said 53 people had been killed and 189 injured since Saturday morning due to IDF bombing in Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis.
The strike occurred as Israel continues its months-long military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell spoke out against the Deir al-Balah strike on X, writing that it occurred “at the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.
“Ceasefire has to happen now,” he wrote.
Ceasefire talks, led by the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, are scheduled to begin on Sunday between representatives from Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
The Deir al-Balah strike was reported as the IDF ordered civilians on Saturday morning in southern parts of Khan Younis to evacuate to an “adjusted humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a region along the coast.
The IDF said it was about to “forcefully operate” after reporting “significant” rocket fire towards Israel from southern Khan Younis and “precise intelligence indicating that Hamas has embedded” infrastructure in the humanitarian area. The Israeli military warned civilians that “remaining in this area has become dangerous”.
