At least 14 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a UN-run school housing displaced families in the central Gaza Strip, hospital officials and the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency say.
The Israeli military said it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” planning attacks from inside al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp, adding that it took measures to mitigate harm to civilians.
The Civil Defence said several women and children were killed, including the daughter of one of its rescue workers.
The UN condemned the strike, which it said was the fifth on the same school since the start of the war 11 months ago.
In July, 16 people were reportedly killed in strike which the Israeli military said targeted several structures at the school used by Hamas fighters.
Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist group by Israel, the UK and other countries – has denied using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.
Israeli forces launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
More than 41,080 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Video of the aftermath of Wednesday’s air strike showed hundreds of people inspecting the heavily damaged ground floor of one wing of al-Jaouni school, as well as the remains of an adjoining structure that appeared to have been destroyed.
Other footage showed ambulances bringing wounded men, women and children said to have been wounded in the strike to al-Aqsa hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah.
A medical source at al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat camp told the AFP news agency that nine people killed in the strike had been brought there, and that six others were taken to al-Aqsa hospital.
The Associated Press cited hospital officials as saying that al-Awda had received 10 bodies and al-Aqsa another four, and that they included one woman and two children.
Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal also put the death toll at 14.
In a post on Telegram, the agency identified one of those killed as the daughter of one of its rescue workers, Momin Salmi. It said he had not seen Shadia for 10 months because he had stayed in northern Gaza while his wife and their eight children had fled southwards.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that aircraft had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre” embedded inside al-Jaouni school.
“Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” it added.
“This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organisation’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said about 5,000 people were sheltering at the school at the time of the strike and accused Israel of a “brutal massacre”.
There was no immediate comment from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which ran al-Jaouni school before the war.
The UN said it condemned “all air strikes that target civilians and those that also target UN facilities”.
“Our policy is clear – UN premises should never be targeted, nor should UN premises be used by any groups or any force from which to launch military activities,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Unrwa has said that almost 70% of its schools in Gaza have been hit over the past 11 months. Many have been severely damaged, the organisation says.
The agency has also reported that at least 563 displaced people have been killed and 1,790 others injured while sheltering inside its schools and other installations.
Earlier on Wednesday, the IDF announced that two Israeli soldiers had been killed and eight others injured in a helicopter crash overnight in southern Gaza.
The helicopter was on a mission to evacuate a critically injured soldier to a hospital for medical treatment and crashed while landing in the Rafah area, a statement said.
“An initial inquiry conducted indicates that the crash was not caused by enemy fire. The cause of the crash is still under investigation,” it added.