ISRAEL’s military has bombed another United Nations-run school as well as an Israeli-designed “safe-zone” in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 42 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others, according to Palestinian officials.
The Israeli attacks on Tuesday hit the UN’s al-Razi school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and a main street lined with market stalls in the southern al-Mawasi area, where thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought shelter.
At least 25 people were killed in al-Razi while 17 were killed in al-Mawasi, Gaza’s Government Media Office said. More than 70 people were wounded in the attacks.
A third Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza also killed five more Palestinians, officials said.
The bombing of al-Razi is the sixth Israeli attack on schools affiliated with the UN and its agencies in the past 10 days.
Video footage verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad showed a young man carrying what appear to be remnants of the rockets that targeted the school.
“I cannot describe the scene from the horror of the bombing,” he said.
Among those killed was local journalist Mohammad Meshmesh. His death takes the number of journalists killed in the conflict to 160, the Gaza Government Media Office said.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, describes chaotic scenes inside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital on Tuesday following the arrival of people wounded in the school attack.
“The Israeli attack on al-Razi middle school in the heart of the camp – such a busy area – happened during a rush hour when the streets around the overcrowded school were full of people,” Mahmoud said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Israeli forces have hit nearly 70 percent of its schools in Gaza since the war began last October.
“Over 95% of these schools were used as shelters when hit. 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed,” UNRWA said on X. “Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for UN premises and humanitarian law must stop.”
Hamas issued a statement denouncing Israel’s “deliberate bombing of displaced people in UNRWA’s al-Razi School in the Nuseirat camp, and the al-Mawasi area west of the city of Khan Younis, which was declared a safe area”.
