Israeli attack kills 16 people at UN school in Gaza as ceasefire talks continue

Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip said 16 people were killed in an Israeli attack on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced people had sought shelter.

The Israeli military said its planes targeted “terrorists” operating around the Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry of the Hamas-controlled area, which condemned the attack as a “heinous massacre”, said 50 injured people had been taken to hospital from the school.

Around 7,000 people sought shelter in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government’s press office said. Dozens of people searched the rubble after the attack to find survivors.

The press office said that the school was run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and that most of the victims were “children, women and the elderly.”

“This is the fourth time they have attacked the school without warning,” said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who described how several children were killed when the rocket hit while they were reading the Koran in class.

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“Granite fragments flew at me in the classroom and the children were injured,” she said AFP.

Hamas described the attack as “a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy in its genocidal war against our Palestinian people.”

The Israeli military said in a statement that it had “attacked several terrorists operating in buildings in the area of ​​UNRWA’s Al-Jawni school.”

“This location served as a hiding place and operational infrastructure from which attacks on IDF forces operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,” it added. At the same time, it said that “steps were taken to reduce the risk of harm to the civilian population.”

“No place is safe”

Israel has agreed to meet with mediators on a ceasefire initiative, but continued its offensive in the area, which began on October 7 after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its staff were killed early Saturday during a strike in Al-Bureij, also in central Gaza. The aid agency operates a large food warehouse in the district.

Al-Aqsa Hospital said nine more bodies from the attack had been brought to the morgue.

The UN agency said 194 of its staff had been killed since the war began.

A UNRWA spokesman said more than half of the agency’s facilities, including many emergency shelters, had been hit since the war began. “As a result, at least 500 people seeking shelter in these facilities have been killed,” the spokesman said. AFP.

Paramedics said another attack on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday left 10 people dead, including three journalists.

“Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,” said civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.

The war began with the attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians. AFP Count 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 38,098 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.