At least 16 dead in airstrike on school in Gaza

At least 16 people were killed in an air strike on a school in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian authorities.

Dozens of other people were injured in the attack on the building that was sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

A video from the scene of the accident shows screaming adults and children in a smoke-filled street covered in dust and debris as they rush to help the injured.

The Israeli military told the BBC that it was investigating the attack.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the attack targeted the upper floors of the school, which is located near a busy market.

According to the BBC, up to 7,000 people used the building as a shelter.

A local source said the target was a room allegedly used by Hamas police. The BBC cannot confirm this claim.

The incident came after hopes had grown in recent days that an agreement between Israel and Hamas was in sight, following months of false starts.

Many schools and other UN facilities were used as emergency shelters by the 1.7 million people who fled their homes during the nearly eight-month war.

An earlier attack in June on another overcrowded UN school in Nuseirat killed at least 35 people.

Local journalists told the BBC at the time that a fighter jet fired two missiles at classrooms on the top floor of the school.

Following the attack, the Israeli military said it had carried out “a targeted strike on a Hamas compound” at the school, killing many of the 20 to 30 fighters it believed were there.

The Hamas-run state media office in the Gaza Strip denied the claim and accused Israel of carrying out a “horrific massacre”.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which runs the school, described the incident in June as “horrific” and said the claim that armed groups might have been in a safe house was “shocking” but could not be confirmed.

The Israeli war was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, in which armed fighters led by Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage to Gaza.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, at least 38,098 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.