The Health Ministry in Gaza said an Israeli strike Saturday on a school killed 30 people, after a days-long military operation further south left around 170 dead, according to the civil defense agency.
Since July 6, at least eight schools – including the latest one – have been hit, leaving more than 100 people dead, based on a tally of tolls by the Health Ministry and a hospital source.
“A short while ago, the targeting of Khadija school, which had a field medical unit inside it, in Deir al-Balah area, resulted in 30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded,” the Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said that the school was housing about 4,000 displaced people who had taken refuge there.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the strike was carried out following “precise… intelligence of terrorists operating in a Hamas compound and control center inside the Khadija school.”
“In parallel, the terrorists developed and stored large quantities of weapons inside the compound.”
The field hospital located inside the school belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, according to hospital director Khalil al-Daqran.
The incident prompted EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell to call for a “political solution” to end the “madness” in Gaza.
“Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness,” Borrell said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
In another post, he said “yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younes… At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight.”
With AFP
