Palestinians survey the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City. Photo: ReutersOne hundred Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City over the weekend, as per Hamas. The number attracted outrage and was challenged by Israel’s military.
“Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on X. “At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There’s no justification for these massacres.”
The foreign ministry of Qatar, which along with the US and Egypt has been trying to get a new round of ceasefire talks going, called the bombing a “brutal crime against defenceless civilians.” Turkey said the attack showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “intends to sabotage the negotiations for a permanent ceasefire.”
The school was located near a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for the residents of Gaza, said the IDF. Local Gaza authorities said the dead included women and children who were sheltering in the school.
The attack is one of the deadliest in the Israel-Gaza war, now into its 11th month, and the high death toll is expected to hinder international attempts to resume ceasefire talks between the two sides.
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The Israel Defense Forces said the air strike targeted militants operating from a command centre embedded within the Al-Taba’een school, according to a Telegram post.
About 20 “Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including senior commanders,” were using the compound “to carry out terrorist attacks,” IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani said on the X social media site.
The casualty estimates from Hamas “do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike”, Shoshani added.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have called for a new round of talks on August 15. It is the latest attempt by the Biden administration to end the war in Gaza even as the region braces for an expected Iranian attack on Israel. Israel has said it will send a delegation, while Hamas has yet to respond.
The three nations have been pressuring the two sides for months, urging both Israel and Hamas militants to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, is designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union.