United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, denouncing “another appalling example of the price paid by civilians” in the war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Friday it had eliminated “17 terrorists” in an attack a day earlier a school run by the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the center of the Gaza Strip causing at least 35 deaths according to the UN.
Hamas’s media office accused the Israeli military of “false information”, claiming that three people Israel presented as “dead” were still “alive”, that at least two people had been killed in other strikes and that the attack on Nousseirat was fatal to “14 children”.
“Eight additional terrorists” killed in this attack on Nousseirat have been identified, including six members of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the army said in a statement, adding that one of them “took part” in the October 7 attack that started the war.
“Clear disregard for international humanitarian law”
On Thursday evening, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, confirmed that nine Palestinian fighters were killed in this attack, some of whom he said “participated in the October 7 massacre.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, denouncing “another appalling example of the price paid by civilians” in the war in Gaza.
Accusing Hamas of deliberately using this school for attacks, the Israeli army claims it carried out a “targeted strike” with “precision weapons” on “three classrooms where about thirty terrorists were hiding”.
According to the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, “at least 35 people” were killed in the strike and “many others were injured”. For its part, Al-Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, not far from Nousseirat, announced a death toll of 37.
The latter accused Israel of “without prior warning” hitting this school of the UN agency for Palestine refugees in the center of the Gaza Strip, which, according to him, housed “6,000 displaced persons”.
“Attack, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes is a clear violation of international humanitarian law,” he condemned on X.
Eight months of war
The war in the Gaza Strip sparked an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed 1,194 people, most of them civilians killed that day, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official Israeli figures.
Of the 251 people taken hostage on October 7, 120 are still trapped in Gaza, of whom 41 have been declared dead by the Israeli military.
The Israeli military campaign launched in retaliation devastated the Gaza Strip. More than 36,700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed there since the start of the war in bombings or Israeli military operations, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government in Gaza.