Gaza rescuers say 17 killed in strike on school-turned-shelter

Gaza’s civil defense agency said Saturday an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Palestinian territory’s largest city killed 17 people, while Israel’s army said it was targeting Hamas militants.

“At least 17 martyrs, including eight children, and more than 30 injured, most of them children and women… following an Israeli rocket strike on al-Zaytoun School C” in Gaza City, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, noting that thousands of displaced people had sought shelter at the school.

Israel’s military said in a statement the air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City.” It said the target was “embedded inside” the al-Falah School, which is adjacent to the al-Zaytoun School buildings.

At the scene said al-Zaytoun School C had been hit. The military did not provide a death toll but said “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”

It is the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza. A strike on the United Nations-run al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where many thousands of Gazans have sought shelter—a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.

The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the ongoing war, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity. Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.

At least 41,391 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.