Israel’s military has bombed another United Nations-run school as well as an Israeli-designed “safe-zone” in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 42 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others, according to Palestinian officials.
The Israeli attacks on Tuesday hit the UN’s al-Razi school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and a main street lined with market stalls in the southern al-Mawasi area, where thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought shelter.
At least 25 people were killed in al-Razi while 17 were killed in al-Mawasi, Gaza’s Government Media Office said. More than 70 people were wounded in the attacks.
A third Israeli attack on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza also killed five more Palestinians, officials said.
The bombing of al-Razi is the sixth Israeli attack on schools affiliated with the UN and its agencies in the past 10 days.
Video footage verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad showed a young man carrying what appear to be remnants of the rockets that targeted the school.
“I cannot describe the scene from the horror of the bombing,” he said.
Among those killed was local journalist Mohammad Meshmesh. His death takes the number of journalists killed in the conflict to 160, the Gaza Government Media Office said.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, describes chaotic scenes inside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital on Tuesday following the arrival of people wounded in the school attack.
“The Israeli attack on al-Razi middle school in the heart of the camp – such a busy area – happened during a rush hour when the streets around the overcrowded school were full of people,” Mahmoud said.
‘Nowhere is safe’
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Israeli forces have hit nearly 70 percent of its schools in Gaza since the war began last October.
“Over 95% of these schools were used as shelters when hit. 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed,” UNRWA said on X. “Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for UN premises and humanitarian law must stop.”
Hamas issued a statement denouncing Israel’s “deliberate bombing of displaced people in UNRWA’s al-Razi School in the Nuseirat camp, and the al-Mawasi area west of the city of Khan Younis, which was declared a safe area”.
“This is a brutal and shameful act that is a scar on humanity,” the group said, reiterating that staunch Israel ally, the United States, was complicit in the “genocide” in Gaza.
The air attacks on Tuesday came even as Israel’s military has pulled back or scaled down ground offensives in the north and south. They followed one of the deadliest weeks in the Gaza Strip since the war began, with at least 470 people killed between July 9 and July 15.
The deaths include at least 90 people who were killed in an Israeli attack on al-Mawasi on Saturday. Israel said it was targeting two senior commanders in the military wing of Hamas, including Mohammed Deif, but said it could not confirm if he had indeed been killed in the attack.
Israeli forces have repeatedly struck al-Mawasi despite designating the coastal area a “safe-zone” and ordering Palestinians fleeing ground assaults to take refuge there.
The relentless bombardments come also as Israel and Hamas continue to weigh the latest ceasefire proposal. Hamas has said talks aimed at halting the nine-month-long war would continue, even after Israel targeted Deif.
Israel has said it will continue pursuing Hamas fighters who are hiding among civilians after offensives uprooted underground tunnel networks.
At least 38,713 people have been killed and 89,166 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is estimated at 1,139, and dozens of people are still held captive in Gaza.
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