Israel strike on Gaza school shelter kills around 100, Hamas-run news office says
CAIRO (Reuters) – An Israeli strike on a Gaza school compound housing displaced families killed around 100 people, the Hamas-run government in Gaza said on Saturday, an attack the Israeli military said was targeted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives operating there.
The video of the area showed body parts scattered on the ground and other bodies being carried covered with blankets on the ground. Empty food cans lay in a pool of blood and a burnt mattress and a baby doll among the debris.
The media office under Hamas said in a statement that the strikes came at a time when the people who were sheltered in the school were performing the morning prayer, which led to many accidents.
“So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are unidentified remains,” Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said in a televised press conference.
About 6,000 people were sheltered in the compound, he said. The health ministry in Gaza has so far not provided details of the injured.
In a statement written in Hebrew, the Israeli army said the death toll was rising. It said about 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were operating in the area.
“The computer, and the mosque that was hit inside it, was serving as a base for Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told X.
“According to the first review, the numbers published by the Government Information Office run by Hamas in Gaza, do not match the information kept by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the exact weapons used, and the accuracy of the strike,” Shoshani said.
Israel says Palestinian terrorist groups are concentrated among Gaza's residents, working in schools, hospitals and designated humanitarian aid centers – which Hamas and its supporters deny.
Hamas said the strike was a heinous crime and escalated. Izzat El-Reshiq, a member of the Hamas political office, said in a statement that the dead did not involve “a single war.”
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter in Gaza's schools, most of which have ceased to function since the war began ten months ago.
The spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabih Abu Rudeineh, called on Israel's ally, Washington, to end “the blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent people, including children, women, and the elderly.”
Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the strike, which came at a time when mediators were pushing for ceasefire talks, saying the killing of Gaza's citizens showed that Israel had no intention of ending the war.
Egypt, the United States and Qatar planned new ceasefire talks on Thursday, as fears grow of a wider conflict, involving Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he will not end the war until Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israel, said a delegation will be sent to the talks on August 15.
A senior Hamas official told Reuters the group was studying a new proposal for talks but would not elaborate.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Health officials say most of the dead were civilians. Israel, which has lost 329 soldiers in Gaza, says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are soldiers. Iran-backed Hamas does not publish its victims.
