More than 100 Palestinians martyred in an Israeli strike that targeted a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza
GAZA, August 10 (SABAH): More than 100 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike that targeted a school sheltering displaced people in the Daraj district of eastern Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Saturday.
As per Al Jazeera, Israeli military confirmed the attack carried out on school in Gaza City, claiming terrorists were hiding there.
“…dozens [others] wounded after the Israeli bombing of the Al-Taba’een school in the Al-Sahaba area in Gaza City,” Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said in a post on Telegram.
Basal described the incident as “a horrific massacre”, with some bodies catching fire.
“The crews are trying to control the fire to retrieve the bodies of the martyrs and rescue the wounded,” he said.
The strikes hit when people sheltering at the school were performing dawn prayers, leading to many casualties, the media office said in a statement. Medics had not yet been able to reach all the bodies, it said. There was no immediate information from Gaza health authorities.
Video from the site showed body parts scattered on the ground and more bodies being carried away and covered in blankets on the floor. Empty food tins lay in a puddle of blood and burnt mattresses and a child’s doll among the debris.
Hamas denounced a “dangerous escalation” on Saturday after an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza killed between 90 and 100 people, according to the territory’s civil defence agency.
“The massacre at Al-Tabieen School in the Daraj neighbourhood in central Gaza City is a horrific crime that constitutes a dangerous escalation,” Hamas said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabih Abu Rudeineh, urged Israel’s ally Washington to put an end to the “blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry condemned the strike, which came as mediators were pushing to resume ceasefire talks, and said that the killing of Gaza civilians showed Israel had no intention to end the fighting.
Live images from the scene showed a large complex with a courtyard where debris lay inside and out. Part of the structure appeared to be a mosque, the upper story of which was partially blown out and charred.
Images showed white-shrouded bodies, blood stains on the ground, and smoke rising from the rubble.
Around 6,000 people had been sheltering at the compound, he said. The Gaza health ministry has so far not provided casualty details.