According to witnesses and local media, missiles struck the UN school's top levels' classrooms.
At least 35 people are said to have died in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in central Gaza that was home to displaced Palestinians. Two missiles launched by a warplane targeting classrooms on the upper level of the school in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp were reported to the BBC by local journalists. Videos showed many corpses along with the devastation. The Israeli military claimed to have killed several of the 20 to 30 gunmen it thought to be inside the school when it "conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound" there.
The Government Media Office in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, refuted the assertion and charged Israel of carrying out a "horrific massacre." The director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which is in charge of the school, called the event "horrific" and said it was "shocking" that there was a possibility that armed organizations were inside a shelter. The adjoining village of Deir al-Balah, which has been overrun since the Israeli military launched a fresh ground campaign against Hamas in central Gaza last week, received a surge of dead and injured persons before being sent to the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital.
The details behind the Nuseirat strike remain unclear, and the BBC is investigating and validating the information that is being provided. According to local journalists and locals, it happened early on Thursday morning at al-Sardi school, which is located in the heavily populated, decades-old Block 2 part of the camp in the southeast and is serviced by Unrwa.
The inhabitants told me that the school was packed with hundreds of displaced persons who had left the violence in other parts of Gaza. The 1.7 million people who have left their homes throughout the almost eight-month-long conflict have taken refuge at several schools and other UN facilities. "I heard the school being hit by five missiles." The Associated Press was informed by Maha Issa, a lady who claimed to be residing at the school with her family, "I went out, running, and found the fire burning in three classrooms."
"My uncle and my two cousins were martyred, and the missile struck my father directly." Social media posts included footage of the school's classrooms being destroyed as well as victims covered in blankets and white shrouds.
"Enough fighting! Numerous times, we have been forced to relocate. "They murdered our kids while they were fast asleep," a mother hurt in the assault cried out on camera.
At first, locals said that the assault had killed almost 20 individuals.
A freelance journalist for the BBC was later informed by an administrator at al-Aqsa hospital that the hospital had received forty dead from the school.
40 individuals were murdered, including 14 children and 9 women, according to a statement released by Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Another 74 people were wounded. Ismail al-Thawabta, the director of the Government Media Office, which is controlled by Hamas, announced the same dead toll. At least 35 people were slain and several more were wounded, according to a statement made by Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner General of Unrwa, on X, previously Twitter.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced in a statement that fighter planes had carried out a "precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside an Unrwa school in the area of Nuseirat". Two higher levels of the building's classrooms were marked on an annotated aerial shot as the "locations of the terrorists," according to the IDF. According to the IDF, the facility was used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants who participated in the assault on southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of almost 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 others.
It also said that "a number of steps were taken prior to the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information, to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike."
Later, between 20 and 30 fighters had been using the school to plot and execute assaults, and several of them had been killed in the raid, IDF spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner informed reporters. "I'm not aware of any civilian casualties and I'd be very, very cautious of accepting anything that Hamas puts out," he said. In addition, he added that the IDF had twice canceled the assault to reduce the number of civilian deaths and charged Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas of intentionally utilizing UN buildings as bases of operations.
"The occupation uses lying to the public opinion by means of false fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it executed against dozens of displaced people," Mr. Thawabta said, rejecting the IDF's accusations. According to Philippe Lazzarini, president of UNRWA, the school was attacked "without prior warning" to either his organization or the 6,000 displaced people taking sanctuary there.
The allegations that there may have been armed gangs inside the refuge are startling. However, we are unable to confirm these assertions," he said. It is flagrantly illegal to attack, target, or use UN premises for armed action in violation of international humanitarian law. Protection of UN personnel, facilities, and activities is required at all times.
Despite sharing their coordinates with warring sides, Mr. Lazzarini said that over 180 Unrwa buildings had been targeted since the start of the conflict, resulting in the deaths of over 450 displaced individuals.
He said, "This has to stop, and everyone involved needs to be held accountable."
According to the health ministry of the territory, at least 36,650 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Israel began a military assault in retaliation for the attack on October 7. The ministry's statistics do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had assumed "operational control" of the eastern portions of Deir al-Balah and the Bureij refugee camp, which is located immediately west of Nuseirat.
Locals reported heavy shelling, and during the course of the preceding day, at least 70 bodies—mostly those of women and children—were taken to al-Aqsa hospital, according to the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
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