GAZA CITY: Civil defence rescuers in Gaza said that an Israeli airstrike on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people on Thursday killed at least 15 Palestinians, including women and children.
The Israeli strike targeted Al-Faluja school in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, where many of the region’s displaced residents have sought refuge amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defence agency, confirmed the casualties, stating, “There are 15 martyrs, including children and women, and dozens wounded, some of them seriously.”
This attack is part of a disturbing pattern, as numerous Israeli strikes have recently targeted school buildings that are housing displaced people, a consequence of the escalating violence that has plagued the Gaza Strip for nearly a year.
The ongoing humanitarian crisis has forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents to be displaced at least once since the onset of the conflict on October 7. Many have turned to educational facilities for shelter, hoping to find safety within their walls.
Thursday’s strike was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on Gaza school buildings housing displaced Palestinians.
On September 11, an Israeli airstrike hit the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza, resulting in international outrage. At that time, six staff members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, were among the 18 fatalities.
Since October 7, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment campaign in Gaza killing at least 41,534 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the territory’s health ministry said on Thursday. The death toll includes 39 deaths reported in just the previous 24 hours.
Furthermore, the ministry noted that around 96,092 Palestinians have been injured in the ongoing Israeli bombardments since October 7, a figure that the United Nations has acknowledged as reliable.
