GAZA: At least 100 Palestinians were killed on Saturday by Israeli airstrikes on a school serving as a shelter for displaced people in Al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
They told Xinhua that the slain victims included women and children and were transferred to Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Taba’een School in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City while the displaced people in the school were performing the Fajr prayer.
Local eyewitnesses told Xinhua that due to a lack of resources such as ambulances and civil defense equipment in the city, the victims were transported to the hospital via private cars and animal-drawn carts.
The Hamas-run government media office in Gaza said in a press statement that the Israeli army “directly bombed the displaced people while they were performing the Fajr prayer, and this is what increased the number of dead rapidly.”
“The Israeli bombing of a displaced people’s school comes within the framework of the crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people in a clear manner,” the office said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Saturday that directed by intelligence, the Israeli Air Force precisely struck a Hamas command and control center in the Al-Taba’een school and located adjacent to a mosque.
The center served as a hideout for Hamas “terrorists” and commanders, from which various attacks were planned and advanced against IDF troops and Israel, the IDF said, adding that prior to the strike, “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
The Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of the current round of Israeli-Hamas conflict on Oct. 7 has risen to 39,699, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Thursday.
