Gaza civil defense says Israel strike on school kills 12

GAZA STRIP

Palestinians carry their children as they flee after an Israeli strike on a school, housing displaced Palestinians, in the Rimal neighbourhood of central Gaza City on Aug. 20, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas.

At least 12 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike on a school that shelters displaced people in Gaza City, the Civil Defense Agency said.

Several other people were injured in the attack that targeted the Mustafa Hafez School in the al-Rimal neighborhood, western Gaza City, which shelters hundreds of displaced people, medical sources told Anadolu.

The strike has caused the collapse of one of the school's buildings that housed some 700 displaced civilians, eyewitnesses said.

Civil defense teams are still struggling to recover the victims from under the rubble of the destroyed building, they said.

Tuesday’s attack was the eighth to have targeted schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza since early August, according to an Anadolu reporter.

Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, amid its ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Under the rules of war, targeting such civilian facilities can constitute a war crime.

The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed over 40,170 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 92,740 since Oct. 7, 2023, according to local health authorities.

More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.