The civil defense agency in Hamas-run Gaza said at least four people were killed on Sunday in an attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, the second Israeli attack in two days.
The Israeli military, which has long accused Palestinian militants of using schools and other civilian infrastructure to attack, confirmed the strike “in the area of a school” in Gaza City.
The statement said the school compound was used as a hiding place and was a “Hamas weapons manufacturing factory.”
The civil protection agency said those killed in the attack on the Holy Family School included Ihab al-Ghussein, the Hamas government’s deputy labor minister.
The attack came a day after a UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp was attacked, an attack the Gaza health ministry said killed 16 people and was condemned by the UN. Israel said militants were hiding there.
Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that militants are hiding in civilian infrastructure.
Most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, which is now in its 10th month, and many have taken refuge in UN-run schools in the besieged territory.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, expressed outrage at repeated attacks on its premises.
“Another day. Another month. Another school attacked,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on the social media platform X.
Some other day.
one more month.
Another school attacked.
once again, @UNRWA School attacked by Israeli forces.
The school, located in the central region, housed about 2,000 internally displaced people, and dozens of casualties were reported.
Since the war began nine months ago today:
,
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 7, 2024
UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told AFP that the agency’s 190 – or more than half – facilities in Gaza had been attacked since the war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, “some more than once”.
“When the war started we closed the schools and they became shelters,” he said.
Touma said that as of Thursday, 194 UNRWA workers had been killed.
Later, the UN agency separately reported that two other people were killed in Israeli attacks on Saturday.
Touma said there had been 450 “incidents” involving UNRWA buildings during the war, and that the damage was “unprecedented in the history of the UN”.
“Any attack on UN facilities is shocking and represents a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law in relation to this conflict,” he said.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
Hamas has also seized hostages, 116 of them in Gaza itself, 42 of whom the military says are dead.
In response, Israel has launched a military offensive that has killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, regional health ministry data shows.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
