Israel’s military has struck a school near Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza, killing at least 30 Palestinians and injuring more than 100, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Telegram that a Hamas command and control centre was embedded inside the Khadija School.
The IDF added that Hamas used the compound as a hiding place to direct and plan attacks and store weapons.
Gaza’s health ministry said footage showed the victims were civilians and most of them were children. The BBC verified a video that shows children among the injured.
Gaza’s civil defence service said the school was sheltering displaced people. Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the report the school was being used for military purposes was “false” and “displaced, sick and wounded people, most of whom were women and children” were killed.
Witness Mustafa Rafati told the BBC the explosion shook his body and he fell from the blow. Afraid, he said he ran inside the school and saw body parts in a “terrifying scene.”
“I was shocked,” he said.
Verified video from the scene shows a chaotic situation, with people running around a compound covered in rubble. Men carry two bloodied children in their arms while a woman hugs another, and a group carries an injured man on a stretcher. A body lies on the ground covered in a blanket.
The IDF said that before the strike it took steps to reduce the risk to civilians “including the use of appropriate munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.
Gaza’s health ministry said 53 people had been killed and 189 injured since Saturday morning due to IDF bombing in Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis.
The strike occurred as Israel continues its months-long military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell spoke out against the Deir al-Balah strike on X, writing that it occurred “at the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.
“Ceasefire has to happen now,” he wrote.
Ceasefire talks, led by the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, are scheduled to begin on Sunday between representatives from Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
The Deir al-Balah strike was reported as the IDF ordered civilians on Saturday morning in southern parts of Khan Younis to evacuate to an “adjusted humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a region along the coast.
The IDF said it was about to “forcefully operate” after reporting “significant” rocket fire towards Israel from southern Khan Younis and “precise intelligence indicating that Hamas has embedded” infrastructure in the humanitarian area. The Israeli military warned civilians that “remaining in this area has become dangerous”.
The IDF released maps showing a further reduced humanitarian area in al-Mawasi. The military shrank the zone on Monday when it ordered the evacuation of part of the humanitarian area ahead of an operation against Palestinian fighters who had apparently regrouped there.
After the evacuation orders, Gaza’s health ministry said at least 70 people were killed by Israeli strikes around Khan Younis.
Also on Saturday, in the West Bank, a 17-year-old and a 24-year-old were killed and 22 people were injured in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus as a result of Israeli military action, the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health said.
By BBC News
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