At least 28 people have been killed and 54 injured in an Israeli air strike on a school sheltering displaced families in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Red Crescent says.
Videos from the scene at Rufaida al-Aslamia school in the town of Deir al-Balah show a cloud of smoke and dust rising up as people rush to help the injured.
Witnesses said there were two air strikes that hit two rooms in the school where food aid was being stored and distributed.
The Israeli military said the “precise strike” targeted Hamas fighters operating inside a "command-and-control centre” at the school.
It also said it had taken numerous steps to mitigate harm to the civilians living there.
“This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organisation’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law,” it added. Hamas has denied the allegation.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry also put the death toll at 28 and denounced what it called a “new massacre” by the Israeli military.
A list published by al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah suggested that at least two of those killed were children, five were women and three were men in their 60s.
Another person named on the list was Ahmed Adel Hamouda, 58, whose widow said he had worked in the school’s administration.
“They killed my only support in life. They killed the support of our three disabled daughters, Rahab, Alaa and Reem,” she said.
Eyewitness Khaled al-Sultan told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme that he saw “horrible things that are beyond description”.
“We were not able to retrieve one complete body because all the victims' bodies turned into pieces. The number of martyrs is shocking,” he added.
Another man, Taha Majad, asked: “Why would a shelter school like this be bombed by F-16 jets? We are humans, aren’t we?”
FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9jm4ggjgyo
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