At least 16 dead and dozens injured in Israeli airstrike on Gaza school, Palestinian officials say

July 7, 2024

At least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured when Israel attacked a school in central Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian officials said.

The airstrike targeted a school housing displaced Palestinians, officials from the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip said.

Israel, however, said the attack was aimed at Hamas militants who were using the area as a hideout to plan and carry out attacks on Israeli soldiers. Israel also said it had taken precautions before the airstrike to minimize harm to civilians.

Hamas denied that its fighters were there. According to eyewitnesses, many of the dead were children.

“We ran here to look at the target area. We saw dismembered children’s bodies. This is a playground. There was a trampoline, swings and vendors,” local resident Ayman al-Atouneh told Reuters.

In addition, several dozen people were seriously injured and authorities in the Gaza Strip fear that the death toll could rise further.

Many of the injured are in critical condition, Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, said in a statement.

The attack has left no place in the enclave safe for families to leave their homes to seek shelter, he said.

Previously, Al-Nuseirat, one of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, was bombed by Israel on Saturday.

Palestinians displaced by Israel's air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip walk next to sewage flowing into the streets of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. — Palestinians displaced by Israel’s air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip walk next to sewage flowing into the streets of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. (AP)

According to paramedics, at least ten people were killed and many others injured in an air raid on a house in the camp.

At least 29 Palestinians have been killed and 100 others injured in Israeli air strikes in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said in its daily update.

Five journalists were among the dead, bringing the number of journalists killed since October 7 to 158, according to the Hamas-run government media office in the Gaza Strip.

According to health authorities in the Gaza Strip, more than 38,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive.

Israel has lost 323 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinians killed were fighters.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s air and ground strikes on Gaza have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Most of the territory’s homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship are in ruins, and much of the 2.3 million residents are homeless and without adequate food supplies, amid warnings of possible famine.

According to a UN humanitarian agency, about 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population has been displaced at least once since the war between Israel and Hamas began.

About 1.9 million people are believed to be displaced in Gaza, said Andrea De Domenico, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories.