Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7

Civil defence rescuers in Gaza City said an Israeli strike Sunday on a school-turned-
shelter killed at least 7 people, with the Israeli military saying it had
targeted Hamas militants.

The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been
displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on
Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported “seven martyrs and a
number of wounded, including serious cases, as a result of Israeli shelling
of Kafr Qasim School” in the Al-Shati refugee camp.

He said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering there.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating
from the school grounds, and that its forces had taken steps “to mitigate the
risk of harm to uninvolved civilians” including by using “precise munitions”
and surveillance.

It said the air force had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists in
the northern Gaza Strip” who were “operating from a compound” at the school
complex.

The military statement did not provide information on casualties.

Sunday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school
buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for
nearly a year.

On Saturday the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on another
school-turned-shelter, also in Gaza City, had killed 21 people. The military
said it was targeting militants.

A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on
September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian
refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported
fatalities.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where
thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian
militant group.

At least 41,391 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed
in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data
provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these
figures as reliable.

The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people
on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based
on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the
Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.