Over 50 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in central and southern Gaza, including an attack on Khadija School in Deir el-Balah, which was sheltering thousands of internally displaced individuals, Palestinian authorities report. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 30 people died in the school attack. Among the deceased were 15 children and eight women, with over 100 others injured. The Israeli military stated that they targeted a “Hamas command center located within the Khadija school complex.” The military claimed that the school was being used to attack their troops and as an arms depot, asserting that they had warned the civilian population prior to the strike.
Ambulances rushed patients to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah following the attack, with some of the wounded arriving on foot, their clothes stained with blood. Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from the hospital, describing “a state of chaos inside the hospital as doctors attempted to provide necessary medical assistance to the injured.” He characterized the situation as “dire,” with all patients suffering from critical injuries, and treatments occurring on the floor due to a lack of available beds.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, condemned the attack on Khadija School as “a massacre that confirms the Israeli enemy’s alienation from all human values and their defiance of all laws of war.” The group urged the international community and the United Nations (FN – De Forenede Nationer) to break their silence and take action to compel the occupation to stop its crimes.
Since hostilities escalated on October 7, following Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, at least 39,258 people have reportedly lost their lives, with more than 90,000 injured, according to Palestinian authorities. The attack on the school occurred after at least 23 individuals had already been killed in strikes on Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud noted that the attacks on Khan Younis were carried out prior to the issuance of evacuation orders via leaflets, phone calls, and text messages from the Israeli military to the local Palestinian population. According to Gaza’s civil defense agency, around 170 people have been killed “and hundreds injured” in an Israeli operation in Khan Younis since Monday.
The United Nations humanitarian agency reported on Friday that over 180,000 people had been displaced in the Khan Younis area between Monday and Thursday, after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for parts of the southern city, including an area previously designated as a safe humanitarian zone. UN agencies have condemned Israel’s displacement of Gaza’s civilian population and military strikes on areas that had earlier been declared safe zones.