Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school killed 18

A Palestinian boy salvages books at a mosque after it was hit in an Israeli strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on September 11, 2024. [AFP]

An Israeli air strike hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the Hamas-run territory's civil defence agency reporting that 18 people were killed, including UN staffers, and the military saying it had targeted militants.

The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people, including two members of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said Gaza's Civil Defence Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

UNRWA gave the higher figure of six staffers killed at the Nuseirat school-turned-shelter, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.

"This school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children," the UN agency separately posted on X. "No one is safe in Gaza."

UN chief Antonio Guterres deplored the killings, which he also said included six UNRWA colleagues.

"What's happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable," he wrote on social media platform X.

"These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now."

Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 18 other people were wounded in the school bombing.

AFP could not independently verify the toll, which the agency said included several women and children.

Israel's military said its air force had "conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre" on the grounds of Al-Jawni, without elaborating on the outcome or the identities of those targeted.

"Most of the people took refuge in schools and the schools were bombed," said Basil Amarneh from Gaza's Al-Aqsa hospital, where children were arriving in the arms of medics.

"Where will people go?"

Strikes on schools

The vast majority of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking safety in schools.

Israeli forces have struck several such schools in recent months, saying Palestinian militants were operating there and hiding among displaced civilians -- charges denied by Hamas.

In July, at least 16 people were killed in an air strike on the Al-Jawni facility that Israel said had targeted "terrorists".

Israel's military offensive since the war began on October 7 has killed at least 41,084 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.

Israel's military meanwhile reported the deaths of two soldiers late Tuesday when an army helicopter crashed in the area of Gaza's southern city of Rafah.

The military announced on Wednesday that the helicopter had crashed while landing and that another eight soldiers were injured.

The aircraft had been on a "life-saving operation" to evacuate a wounded soldier when it crashed, Major General Tomer Bar said in a statement.

"An investigative committee has been appointed to investigate the details of the crash," he said, and called it an "operational accident".

The latest deaths bring the Israeli military's losses in the Gaza campaign to 344 since its ground offensive began on October 27.