go through Rushdie Abuvaruf and Tom MacArthur, bbc news
Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza has killed at least 16 people.
Buildings housing thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza were attacked and dozens more were injured, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Video from the scene showed adults and children screaming and running to help the injured in smoke-filled streets filled with dust and rubble.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it attacked several “terrorists operating in buildings in the Al-Jaouni school area”.
Witnesses told the BBC the attack targeted the upper floors of the school, which is located near a busy market.
The BBC understands that up to 7,000 people are using the building as shelter.
A woman told AFP that some children who were reading the Koran were killed when the building was hit.
“This is the fourth time they have targeted a school without warning,” she said.
Local sources said the target was a room allegedly used by Hamas police. The BBC could not confirm this claim.
in a statement Post to X – Formerly known as Twitter – The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack on the school building and said it had taken “numerous measures” to “mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precision aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.
According to reports, Hamas militants used the location as a “hideout” to launch attacks on the Israel Defense Forces.
“Hamas continues to systematically violate international law by using civilian buildings and civilians as human shields in its terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,” the statement added.
Hamas called the attack a “massacre” of “unarmed displaced civilians”.
The organization claimed through its English-language Telegram channel that many of the dead and injured were women, children and the elderly.
ReutersDuring the nearly eight-month war, many schools and other UN facilities were used as shelters by the 1.7 million people who fled their homes.
In June, another UN-run school in Nuserat was attacked and overcrowded. Caused at least 35 deaths.
Local reporters told the BBC at the time that a warplane fired two missiles at a classroom on the top floor of the school.
After that attack, the Israeli military said it “carried out precision strikes against a Hamas compound inside the school” and killed many of the 20 to 30 militants believed to be inside the school.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which runs the school, described June’s events as “horrible” and said suggestions that armed groups may be inside the shelter were “shocking” but could not be confirmed.
Israel’s war was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took another 251 back to Gaza as hostages.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 38,098 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
