 |
| Unrwa said this was the fifth time al-Jaouni school had been hit since the start of the war |
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staff members were killed when an Israeli airstrike struck a school it operates in central Gaza. This incident marks the highest death toll among UNRWA staff since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in October.
The strike at the al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp was sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians, said the Hamas-run government media office, killing 18 people. The Israeli military seemed to justify the apparent attack on the school when it said it had carried out a "precise strike on terrorists" who were planning attacks from within the school.
UNRWA said this was the fifth time the school had been hit in 11 months. A similar strike in July killed 16 people, according to reports, which the Israeli military claimed targeted Hamas fighters who used the structures within the school. Hamas - designated by Israel, the UK, and others as a terrorist organisation - denies using schools or other civilian sites for military activities.
The IDF launched an operation to root out Hamas after the terror group's unprecedented assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages into Gaza. Since then, at least 41,080 people have been reported killed in Gaza by the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric condemned "all airstrikes that target civilians and those that also target UN facilities."
Videos posted online showed people looking at damage to the al-Jaouni school and the surrounding area and injured people being transported to al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. One of the dead was named by the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency in a post on Telegram as the daughter of a rescue worker who had not been allowed to see his family for 10 months.
The IDF again maintained that the attack had been against an "embedded Hamas command and control center" in the school, and added that "numerous measures were taken to avoid causing harm to civilians," including precision shells and aerial monitoring. It has likewise accused Hamas of "systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law."
In turn, the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza accused Israel of a "brutal massacre." UNRWA said two Israeli airstrikes had hit the school and its vicinity that was sheltering about 12,000 displaced people, mostly women and children. It called for protection of schools and other civilian infrastructures, urging all parties not to use them for military purposes.
 |
| The UN said its premises should never be targeted nor used by any groups for military purposes |
UNRWA said that almost 70% of its schools in Gaza were damaged during the conflict, hours before the incident was reported. The agency added it also knew of 214 of its staff killed, as well as at least 563 displaced people who had been sheltering in its schools among other facilities.
Israel has in the past accused UNRWA of supporting Hamas. While the agency has denied such allegations, the UN said in August it had dismissed nine of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza after an investigation uncovered evidence that they may have been linked to the October 7 attack. Another ten employees were cleared for lack of evidence.
Israel further claimed that hundreds of UNRWA staff were members of terror organizations; a UN review issued in April, however, found that Israel hadn't provided evidence to support these claims.
In a separate incident, the IDF said two Israeli soldiers were killed, and eight others injured in a helicopter crash overnight in southern Gaza. It said the helicopter was on a mission to evacuate a critically injured soldier to a hospital when it crashed while landing in the Rafah area. "An initial inquiry conducted indicates that the crash was not caused by enemy fire. The cause of the crash is still under investigation," the statement said.