United Nations leaders on Thursday accused Israel of violating international humanitarian law, saying that six of its workers were among 18 people reported killed by an airstrike on a school in central Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians.
“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a post on X hours after Wednesday’s attack on Al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now,” he added.
Children were among at least 18 people killed in the airstrike, Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said in a statement, adding that it was the fifth time Israeli forces had targeted the facility during Israel’s almost yearlong offensive in Gaza.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, which has been operating the school as shelter for displaced Palestinians, said it had been sheltering more than 12,000 people.
The manager of the shelter was among the six workers killed, it said, adding that it was the “highest death toll among our staff in a single incident.”
The Israel Defense Forces said it had carried out a “precise strike” on the school targeting Hamas members, in a statement posted to Telegram on Wednesday. It said the militant group was using the compound as a “command and control center” to plan and execute attacks against Israeli troops, without providing evidence.
It added that “numerous steps” were taken to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.
In a later statement on X, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said it had asked UNRWA to provide the names of the workers killed.
He added that a military inquiry suggested that “a significant number” of those killed, as named in the media and social media, were “Hamas terrorist operatives who took part in terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel and IDF troops.”
He did not provide any evidence to back up his statement.
NBC News has reached out to the IDF for comment on claims that the school was being used as a base by Hamas and that its fighters were among those killed.
Video captured by NBC News’ crew on the ground in Gaza shortly after the strike showed Palestinians carrying the dead and injured.
At one point, a man can be seen carrying what appears to be a small body covered in a white shroud drenched in blood.
Notebooks, clothes and tins of food lay scattered on the ground, spattered with what appeared to be blood.
More than 40,900 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to health officials in the enclave. Israel launched its military offensive after 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage during Hamas’ multipronged attacks that day, according to officials in the country.
UNRWA said in a statement Thursday that schools and other civilian infrastructures “must be protected at all times” as it called on “all parties to the conflict to never use schools or the areas around them for military or fighting purposes.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com