An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday hit a school in central Gaza, killing 14 people, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, which said the facility had been used as a displacement shelter. The Israeli military stated that the strike targeted militants.
The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents at least once, with many seeking refuge in schools. Israeli forces have targeted several schools in recent months, claiming that Palestinian militants were using the facilities and hiding among civilians. Hamas has denied these accusations.
Al-Jawni school, located in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, had already been hit several times during the conflict. On Wednesday, it was struck again, according to Mahmud Bassal, a spokesperson for the civil defence agency. “The number of martyrs has risen to 14,” he told AFP, updating an earlier death toll of 10. The victims included several women and children, though AFP could not independently verify the numbers.
The Israeli military confirmed that its air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre” located on the school grounds but did not provide further details about the outcome or the identities of those targeted.
According to the Hamas government’s media office, about 5,000 displaced people were sheltering at the school, which was previously run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), at the time of the strike. Bassal added that Al-Jawni had been hit at least five times over the course of the 11-month-long war.
In July, another airstrike killed at least 16 people, with the Israeli military stating that the attack had targeted “terrorists.”
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally, Israel’s military campaign has resulted in the deaths of at least 41,084 people in Gaza, with the UN reporting that most of the victims are women and children.
