At least 15 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on a school that was housing displaced Palestinians in central Gaza, according to the media office of the Gaza government. Many others have been injured in the attack on the Hamama School in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, reported the official Palestinian news agency Wafa on Saturday.
Hani Mahmoud, a journalist with Al Jazeera reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, stated that at least three bombs were dropped on the school while rescuers and volunteers inside the building were attempting to assist people trapped under the rubble. “The three bombs completely destroyed the building. This is a tactic that the Israeli military has frequently used in the past,” he explained, detailing how the military often drops one bomb that partially damages a facility, followed shortly by additional bombs.
The Israeli military claimed that the school was being used as a command center for Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, to hide fighters and manufacture weapons. However, Hamas has denied Israeli accusations that they operate from civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals. The group condemned the Israeli strikes on the school, stating that “the occupying army uses lies as a pretext to target unarmed civilians in Gaza.”
Verified footage by Al Jazeera showed victims of the Israeli attacks arriving at al-Ahli Hospital. Among the wounded were children, some appearing to be unconscious, while medical staff desperately tried to treat them. Scenes at the hospital were chaotic, with some casualties lying on the floor and grieving Palestinians crowding the corridors.
According to one of the injured individuals, the attacks came without warning. Earlier on Saturday, Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed six people in a house in southern Rafah and two others in Gaza City, according to Gaza’s health authorities. The Israeli army stated that its forces had targeted fighters and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and other locations during the strikes.
In the occupied West Bank, two Israeli attacks killed nine militants, including a local Hamas commander on Saturday, according to Hamas. A statement from Hamas mentioned that one of the deceased was a commander of their Tulkarem brigades, while their ally, Islamic Jihad, reported that four of the dead were their fighters.
The latest attacks occurred while a senior Israeli delegation was making a brief visit to Cairo on Saturday to attempt to resume ceasefire negotiations in Gaza, according to Egyptian airport authorities. The delegation returned to Israel a few hours later, as reported by Israeli media. The prospects for a breakthrough seem low as regional tensions have risen following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, the day after an Israeli attack in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a senior military commander from the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
Haniyeh’s death is part of a series of assassinations of high-ranking Hamas figures as the Gaza conflict nears its eleventh month, raising concerns that the conflict could escalate into a wider war in the Middle East. Both Hamas and Iran have accused Israel of being behind Haniyeh’s assassination and have vowed to seek revenge. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for his death.