At least four dead in Israeli attack on school housing displaced Palestinians, Gaza rescue workers report

The Israeli military, which has long accused Palestinian militants of using schools and other civilian infrastructure, confirmed the attack “in the area of ​​the school” in Gaza City.

A statement said the school complex was being used as a hideout by insurgents and housed “a Hamas weapons factory.”

The Civil Defense Agency said that among those killed in the attack on the Holy Family School was Ihab al-Ghusain, the Hamas government’s deputy labor minister.

Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that militants are hiding in civilian infrastructure.

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war, which has now raged for ten months, and many have sought refuge in UN-run schools throughout the besieged territory.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) expressed outrage at the repeated attacks on its premises.

“Another day. Another month. Another school hit,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on the social media platform X.

“When the war started, we closed the schools and they became emergency shelters,” she said.

As of Thursday, 194 UNRWA staff had been killed, Touma added.

Since then, the UN agency reported separately that two more people were killed in an Israeli attack on Saturday.

During the war, there were 450 “incidents” involving UNRWA buildings, Touma said. The damage was “unprecedented in the history of the UN.”

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Chinese-Israeli woman among four hostages rescued from Gaza

Chinese-Israeli woman among four hostages rescued from Gaza

“Any attack on UN facilities is shocking and, in the case of this conflict, represents a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law,” she added.

The attack on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to a count by Agence France-Presse based on Israeli figures.

Hamas fighters also took hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the military, 42 of them are dead.

In response, Israel launched a military offensive that killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry.