An Israeli airstrike at a Gaza school compound early Saturday, killing at least 80 people, Palestinian health authorities told The Associated Press.
The strike on the school-turned-shelter is one of the deadliest in the 10-month-old war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.
Fadel Naeem, director of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, told the AP that the facility received 70 bodies of those killed in the strike. The hospital said it also received the body parts of at least 10 others. The Health Ministry said another 47 people were wounded.
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“We received some of the most serious injuries we encountered during the war,” Naeem said.
The Israeli military acknowledged the strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City. However, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, questioned the casualty numbers issued by the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“Based on Israeli intelligence, approx. 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including senior commanders, were operating from the compound struck at the Al-Tabaeen school, using it to carry out terrorist attacks. The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” Shoshani’s post read in part.
Newsweek emailed the Israel Ministry of Defense and the Palestinian Health Ministry Saturday morning for comment on the airstrike.
Israel claimed that it hit a Hamas command center within the school. Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the school, according to the AP.
The strike hit before sunrise as people were praying at a mosque inside the school, according to the AP, who spoke to a witness who worked to rescue people.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people,” the witness said. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
The U.N. Human Rights Office said this week that there were at least 17 attacks on schools in the previous month. In those attacks, 163 people died, including many women and children. As of July 6, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been directly hit or damaged in the war, according to the U.N.
Israel says Hamas is to blame for civilian deaths in Gaza because the group, according to Tel Aviv, uses schools and residential neighborhoods as bases for operations and attacks.
Israeli officials estimate that around 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ initial attack on Oct. 7 and that more than 320 IDF soldiers have been killed in the ensuing ground offensive. About 240 people were also taken hostage, around half of whom are believed to still be in the captivity of Hamas and allied Palestinian factions.
The Palestinian Health Ministry based in Hamas-led Gaza has counted more than 39,600 people killed and wounded more than 92,000 others in the Palestinian territory since the war began.
Saturday’s strike comes as Egypt, the United States and Qatar have scheduled a new round of ceasefire negotiations for Thursday.
New uncertainties also surround the ceasefire talks since the killing of Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh last week in the Iranian capital of Tehran. The IDF has declined to comment on whether or not it was behind the assassination, after which Hamas’ Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, was announced on Tuesday as the group’s new leader.
Iran has vowed to avenge Haniyeh’s killing on its soil, while its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, has called also promised retaliation over the slaying of its top military official, Fouad Shukr, in an Israeli strike in Beirut less than a day earlier amid intensifying clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Egypt condemned Saturday’s strike on the school, saying it showed Israel had no intention of reaching a ceasefire deal. Neighboring Jordan and Qatar have also condemned Israel’s latest attack, according to the AP.
This is a developing story and will be updated with more information.