The Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office said Israeli forces had attacked a United Nations school for displaced people in Al-Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens.
The statement accused Israeli forces of carrying out a “horrific massacre that is a disgrace to humanity.” The Health Ministry did not immediately confirm the death toll, and the death toll could not immediately be confirmed.
Footage posted by a Palestinian journalist on X early on Thursday showed dead bodies lined up at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah and injured children being treated on the floor.
The Israeli army confirmed that it had targeted the United Nations school in Al-Nuseirat on Sunday, saying it was the base of Hamas terrorists who had participated in the attack on Israel on October 7. The army said that “terrorists” who were planning attacks in the near future had been “eliminated” and that “a number of measures had been taken to reduce the possibility of harm to those not involved.”
The attack on the school run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNRWA) for Palestinians came as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced a new operation against Hamas in the center of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, with Palestinian medical sources saying dozens were killed in airstrikes.
The charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said at least 70 people had been killed and more than 300 wounded, mostly women and children, taken to Al-Aqsa hospital since Tuesday in “intense Israeli attacks” in central Gaza.
Karin Hastur, medical adviser for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, described the situation as “overwhelming.” “There are people lying all over the place, on the floor, outside… Bodies are being brought in in plastic bags,” she told X.
An Israeli military statement said of the new operation: “Troops from the 98th Division launched simultaneous precision operations above and below ground in the areas of Eastern Bureiji and Eastern Deir al-Baraf.”
Residents said Israeli forces sent tanks into Bureiji, and that planes and tanks attacked the nearby settlements of al-Maghazi and al-Nuseirat, as well as the city of Deir al-Bala.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad militias said they had engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces across the territory, firing anti-tank rockets and artillery shells.
Abu Mohammed Abu Saif said his two children were among the dead brought to Al-Aqsa hospital after the Israeli attack. “This is not war, this is unspeakable destruction,” he said, adding that his children were killed along with their mother, who was unable to flee when neighbours fled the scene.
Al-Aqsa Hospital is one of the last functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip and reported a generator failure earlier in the night, threatening to make it difficult to treat patients.
Israel also reiterated on Wednesday its refusal to stop attacks on Gaza to allow hostage release talks to resume with Hamas, with Israeli media quoting Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as saying “any negotiations with Hamas will only take place under attack.”
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said his group would demand a permanent end to the war in Gaza and an Israeli withdrawal as part of its ceasefire plan.
The remarks were an apparent blow to a much-touted ceasefire proposal announced last week by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Gaza health officials say more than 36,000 people have been killed in Israeli military offensives into Gaza, with thousands more feared buried under rubble. The war began in October when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
Two new food security reports said Wednesday that many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have died from months of extreme hunger and children have suffered permanent damage from malnutrition even before famine was officially declared.
The US-based Fews Net Network of Early Warning Systems said it was “unlikely but possible” that famine began in northern Gaza in April. Two UN agencies said more than one million people were “expected to face death and starvation” by mid-July.
Israel has blocked large amounts of aid and fuel from entering Gaza and cut off most of its water supplies.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “very strong” response to attacks by Lebanon’s Hezbollah that have escalated in recent days and sparked major fires in northern Israel.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
