At least 100 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were killed early Saturday after the Israeli army attacked a school in Gaza City while refugees were performing morning prayers.
Videos from Middle East Eye showed charred bodies and limbs strewn across the concrete floor as people desperately searched for loved ones following the attacks.
Another video showed dozens of bodies covered with cloth and lying in a courtyard. The victims of the attack were taken to Maamadani Hospital, one of the few operating in northern Gaza.
Moatasem Dalloul, an activist and resident of Gaza City, told Middle East Eye that the hospital does not have enough beds for the wounded and that many of them remain in the corridors.
“The bodies of the murdered people are lying everywhere in the hospital courtyards and their loved ones are saying goodbye to them,” said Dalloul, who went to the school to help the victims, adding: “Israel continues to attack the shelters, but people continue to take refuge in these places because their homes have been destroyed in the repeated Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip.”
The civil defence agency said three Israeli rockets targeted the Tabin school in Gaza City’s Al Daraj district as Palestinians were performing morning Fajr prayers. A man who was at the scene of the massacre told MEE: “When we entered the school, we saw body parts all over the prayer hall.”
The director of the supplies department of the Gaza civil defense authority, Mohammed al-Mughair, said the Tabin school was hosting some 2,400 displaced Palestinians.
“The school was targeted by three missiles, including at least one MK-84 missile, which weighs 2,000 pounds,” Mughair said.
According to the civil defence, the rockets hit two floors of the school: the first in an area inhabited by displaced women and the second on the ground floor, which was used as a prayer room. “The occupation army directly shelled the displaced people while they were performing the dawn prayer,” the Gaza government’s media office said in a statement.
Without any evidence to support this claim, the Israeli army said in a statement that it had attacked a “command and control centre” that “served as a hideout for terrorists and Hamas commanders.”
According to the Palestinian government, Israel has attacked at least 172 designated shelters, mostly schools, housing thousands of displaced families since the start of the Israeli invasion in October 2023.
Last month, the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) said Israeli forces had bombed nearly 70 percent of its schools in Gaza, killing more than 500 people.
The devastating attack came less than a day after the Israeli government confirmed it would send a delegation to a ceasefire summit proposed by the leaders of the United States, Qatar and Egypt on August 15.
News in development
With information from Middle East Eye.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
