By Raja Abdulrahim, Victoria Kim and Aaron Boxerman
An Israeli airstrike early Saturday hit a school compound in the northern Gaza Strip where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing dozens of people, according to Gaza officials.
The Israeli military acknowledged the attack but said Hamas and another armed Palestinian group were using the facility for military operations and attacks on Israel.
The strike in Gaza City, the latest in a string of attacks on schools turned into shelters, drew strong condemnation from the European Union and the United Nations, with Josep Borrell, the top EU diplomat, saying: “There’s no justification for these massacres.”
The strikes have taken place alongside mounting international pressure on Israel to conclude a deal for a cease-fire and an exchange of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian detainees, with President Joe Biden and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar saying this past week that “the time has come.”
The Gaza Civil Defense emergency service said more than 90 people were killed. But that number could not be confirmed, and two doctors at a hospital in the area gave slightly lower totals. Gaza health officials do not distinguish between civilians and combatants when reporting casualties.
The Israeli military did not provide a death toll. But it questioned the Gaza authorities’ statements, saying that its own assessment of the incident was at odds with the reported death toll.
Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesperson, said that intelligence gathered by Israel indicated that “no women and children were present” in the building struck by Israeli forces. Regarding the casualty count, he said: “These figures do not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and they do not match the information” held by the Israeli military.
The Civil Defense emergency service in Gaza said the strike hit as more than 200 people gathered before sunrise in a prayer hall to worship. More than 2,000 displaced people had been staying at the shelter, the Al-Tabaeen school in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, the emergency service said.
The attack was launched as the United States, Egypt and Qatar mounted a new effort to restart negotiations for a truce in Gaza this coming week, with fears rising of an escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran. Analysts said President Joe Biden and his allies hope the prospect of a cease-fire in Gaza will dampen tensions between Iran, its militant allies and Israel, and put brakes on the momentum toward a regional war.
For days, Israel has tensely awaited retaliation for the assassination of top leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah, both groups backed by Iran. Biden and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar called Thursday for more talks between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza, saying they would be willing to present a “final bridging proposal” to both sides.
There is “no further time to waste,” the leaders said in a joint statement, a sign of the growing impatience over the stalled peace talks. Hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he would send negotiators to talks next Thursday; Hamas has yet to respond to the offer.
In Gaza, however, Israel’s campaign — now in its 11th month — dragged on.
At least 17 school buildings have been targeted over the past month, killing at least 163 Palestinians, according to the United Nations. The Israeli military said Hamas has cynically exploited the compounds, and the displaced people sheltering inside, for its own protection; international law experts say Israel needs to do more to avoid harming civilians.
The Israeli military defended Saturday’s attack, saying in a statement that “the strike was carried out using three precise munitions,” and that several steps were taken to mitigate civilian casualties, “including the use of a small warhead, aerial surveillance and intelligence information.” At least 19 militants from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad armed groups were killed in the attack, the statement said.
“The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, without providing details. He added that information released by the Gaza authorities in the past has “proven to be sorely unreliable.”
The Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers are believed to be broadly reliable, though there is often uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of specific strikes, and the destruction of the territory’s health system has made tolls harder to track.
Saturday’s airstrike hit two floors, one of which was used for communal prayers and the other for sheltering women and children, Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said. He said the prayer hall inside the school complex has been used for worship since the beginning of the war in October.
Basal, said 11 children and six women were among those killed in the strike Saturday, adding that many people were seriously wounded.
Many of those wounded in the strike, including children, were arriving with severe burns covering much of their bodies, said Tayseer al-Tanna, a surgeon at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, who called the scene “very difficult to watch.”
Al-Tanna said doctors had been forced to amputate several badly burned and mangled limbs since early morning. They had almost no painkillers to give their patients, he said, and did not have enough time to fully sterilize the overused equipment between operations.
Fadel Naim, a medical official at Al-Ahli Hospital who served for years as dean of the medical college at the Islamic University of Gaza, widely seen as a Hamas stronghold, said the hospital had received at least 70 bodies since Saturday morning. The strike was followed by a flood of people searching for loved ones missing in the wake of the explosion, he said.
Khamis Elessi, a doctor at the same hospital, in Gaza City, said more than 73 identified bodies had been brought to the hospital morgue, along with another 10 who had yet to be identified because they were disfigured in the explosion.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, called Saturday’s deadly attack “another day of horror” in Gaza. He called on all sides not to harm civilians or use schools for military purposes.
“It’s time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end,” he said on social media. “We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm.”
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