“Eleven martyrs were pulled from the rubble after Israeli warplanes hit the Chouhada al-Zeitoun school (in the north) with two missiles,” Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said.
The school was home to thousands of displaced Palestinians, he added, adding that several people were injured in the shooting. The AFP could not independently verify this assessment.
For its part, the Israeli military claimed it carried out a “precision strike” on the school, targeting fighters from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against whom it has been engaged in a deadly war since October 7.
“The school grounds were used by Hamas terrorists to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli army troops and the State of Israel,” she said in a statement.
Civilians between a rock and a hard place
On Wednesday, an Israeli strike on a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and located in Nousseirat (center) left at least 18 dead, according to the Civil Defense. Israel claimed to have targeted “terrorists” there, while UN officials said six of its collaborators were among the dead.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war killed 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to a count based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.