Dozens were killed in the attack on the school, which serves as an emergency shelter in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.
The Israeli military, which has been carrying out one of the heaviest bombardments of the Gaza Strip in the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians, said it struck a “Hamas command center.” But no evidence was provided to support the claim.
The Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health’s emergency and rescue service said more than 60 people were killed and 47 wounded in the attack on Tabin School in central Gaza City, the Associated Press reported.
An estimated 6,000 people were displaced when three rockets hit the school, according to Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense first response force operating under the Hamas-led government.
“We recovered them as body parts.”
“The Israeli attacks targeted the displaced people during Fajr (morning prayers), as a result of which the number of casualties rose rapidly,” added the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office.
Witnesses said the attack happened before dawn, when people had gathered at the school mosque for prayers.
Abu Anas, who helped to rescue people, said:
“The missiles hit them without warning, the first rocket and then the second.” We retrieved them as body parts.”
The Israeli military said its air force “strikes a command and control center that has served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders.”
“The Israeli Air Force targeted Hamas terrorists operating from a Hamas command and control center located in Al-Tabeeen School, next to the mosque in Daraj Tufa, which serves the Gaza population and serves as a refuge,” they added.
“Prior to the attack, a number of measures were taken to reduce the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precision weapons, aerial surveillance and intelligence,” the ministry said.
Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attack by militant groups that massacred 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 250 hostages.
Since then, Israel has killed around 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the exclave. Thousands more are feared to be lost under the rubble.
As of July 6, 477 of the 564 schools in the Gaza Strip had been hit or damaged in the war, according to the United Nations.
In June, Israeli attacks on a school in central Gaza housing displaced Palestinians killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.
Of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million, more than 1.9 million have been forced from their homes and have fled repeatedly across the territory to avoid attacks.
Most of them now take refuge in dilapidated tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometers on the Gaza coast.