GAZA (AFP) – Rescuers in central Gaza said an Israeli strike on Thursday killed at least 17 people at a school-turned-shelter, where the Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants.
Al-Shuhada school in Nuseirat refugee camp, where Hamas authorities said displaced Palestinians had sought refuge, was the latest target in a series of attacks on similar facilities across the Gaza Strip in recent months.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the Gaza civil defence agency, told AFP that the strike killed 17 people and wounded dozens more. The nearby Al-Awda hospital gave the same death toll.
Palestinian woman Umm Muhammad, who told AFP she was at the school at the time of the strike, described a terrifying scene with "stones and glass" falling from above.
"I hugged my little girl. I couldn't see anything through the thick plume of smoke," she said.
"I ran and screamed for my sister and found her alive downstairs," Umm Muhammad added.
"But there were children torn to pieces" as a result of the attack, she said.
The Israeli military said its air force had struck "Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command-and-control centre in the area of Nuseirat, which was located inside the school".
That location, a military statement said, "was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF (army) troops and the State of Israel".
The Hamas government media office said in a statement that "thousands of displaced people were sheltering in the school, most of them children and women."
In recent months, Israeli forces have struck several schools-turned-shelters across Gaza, with the military maintaining that it has targeted militants.
In a statement, Hamas called the latest strike "criminal" and reported many "women and children" among its victims.