According to the AP agency, people who had to leave their homes because of the fighting were hiding in the school. The Israeli military said it housed members of the elite Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad units involved in the October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and captured around 250 others and taken them to the Gaza Strip. According to the AP, however, the military did not provide evidence for the claim of militants at the school. The Israeli offensive since last October has claimed the lives of more than 36,654 Palestinians, including 68 in the past day, and injured 83,309 Palestinians, 235 in the last 24 hours, according to an announcement by the Gaza Health Ministry today.
In another statement, the Israeli military said that she killed 20 to 30 terrorists during the strike, especially from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. According to an army statement, the gunmen were hiding in three classrooms. The military also says it delayed the strike twice to minimize civilian casualties. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and hides in buildings such as schools and hospitals.
14 children died
The hospital in Deir Balah, according to the AP agency, announced that received the bodies of at least 30 people killed in a strike on a UNRWA-run school and another six bodies of people killed in an airstrike on a residential building. The AP is citing records from the hospital and a reporter it has on the ground. Juliette Touma of UNRWA told Reuters that the estimate of the number of people killed in the attack on the school in Nusayrat is 35 to 45 at this time, however, this is a provisional balance sheet at this time. The head of the Hamas government’s press department, Ismáíl Sauabta, and a source from the Ministry of Health said shortly afterwards that 40 people were killed, including 14 children and nine women.
Sauabta rejected Israel’s claim that Hamas fighters were hiding in the school in Nusayrat. “The occupying forces are lying to the public through fictional stories to justify this brutal crime against the displaced people,” he told Reuters.
Muhammad Karim, a displaced Palestinian who saw ambulances bringing in the wounded, described the chaotic scenes outside the hospital to the AP. Videos circulating on the Internet captured how some of the wounded were treated directly on the floor, which happens frequently in the Gaza Strip, where hospitals cannot handle the number of wounded and are overburdened as a result of the conflict. An AP witness also described how people searched for their loved ones among bodies wrapped in white sheets in the hospital courtyard. According to Karim, one woman kept asking hospital staff to uncover the bodies to see if her son was among the dead. “The situation is tragic,” said Karím.
In the month since Israeli troops entered Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, airstrikes and ground fighting around Nusayrat have also intensified. One of the houses in the local camp was the target of an attack, for example, on May 19, when 20 people died. The Israeli military says it is conducting “targeted” operations there.
Before today’s attack, the military said in a statement that it had taken steps to limit civilian casualties, such as “aerial visual inspection” or gathering additional intelligence.