Dozens of people have been killed in a strike that targeted a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials have said – as the Israeli army said it had struck a “Hamas control centre”.
The Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service said the strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City killed more than 60 people and wounded 47, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier the Gaza Civil Defence agency said displaced Palestinians were sheltering in a school in al Daraj neighbourhood.
“The Israeli strikes targeted the displaced people while performing Fajr [dawn] prayers, a matter led to a rapid increase in the number of casualties,” the Hamas-run Gaza government media office added in a statement.
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The Israeli army said its air forces “struck [a] command and control centre served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders”.
“The Israeli Air Force precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control centre embedded in the Al-Taba’een school and located adjacent to a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for the residents of Gaza City,” they added.
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information,” it added.
Israel has been at war with Hamas in Gaza since the militant group’s 7 October attack, which saw 1,200 people massacred in southern Israel and 250 more taken hostage.
Since then, Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to figures from health officials in the enclave, who say thousands of others are feared dead under the rubble.
According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged in the war as of 6 July.
In June, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.
More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives.
Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) on the Gaza coast.
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