Israeli strike on Gaza school kills 22, says Hamas-run health ministry

An Israeli air strike on a school in Gaza City has killed at least 22 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The school, closed during the war, was housing displaced people, the health ministry said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted a Hamas command centre which Israel said the militant group was using to “plan and carry out terrorist attacks”.

Hamas has denied using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.

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The Hamas-run government media office said the people killed in Saturday’s strike in the al-Zaytoun area included several children and six women.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported the same death toll and added that one of the women was pregnant.

Several graphic videos of the aftermath of the strike examined by BBC Verify appear to corroborate this.

Other footage shows children among the victims. Some are seen with severe injuries, including parts of their legs missing. Others are seen lying motionless while adults try to deliver CPR.

BBC Verify confirmed the location by comparing details seen in the background to satellite and ground-level images of the targeted school.

The IDF said it took steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, and accused Hamas of exploiting civilian infrastructure.

Hamas “systematically violates international law by operating from inside civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and exploiting the Gazan civilian population for its terrorist activities”, the IDF said.

Also on Saturday, the health ministry said that four of its workers were killed and six injured in an Israeli “targeting” of a health ministry warehouse in the Musabah area of southern Gaza. The ministry did not specify whether the incident was an air strike.

The BBC has approached the IDF for comment on the report of health workers killed.

Other schools have been hit, some several times, by Israeli air strikes since the latest conflict with Hamas began on 7 October.

Earlier this month, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said six of its employees were killed in an Israeli air strike on al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp, which is being used as a shelter by thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Unrwa said it was the fifth time the school had been hit since 7 October.

Israel’s military said it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” planning attacks from the school. The military alleged that nine of those killed were members of Hamas’s armed wing and that three of them were Unrwa staff.

Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 41,000 people, according to the health ministry.