Israel’s army says it hit a terrorist command center in Gaza. The U.N. says it was the deadliest strike for its staff during the war.
Gaza Strip — Israel bombed a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, killing 18 people including two staffers with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, according to rescuers. The Israeli military described it as a «precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center embedded within a compound that previously served as the Al-Jaouni School» in the central Gaza district of Nuseirat.
The school had already been bombed several times over the course of . The militant group ruled over Gaza for almost two decades before it sparked the ongoing war with its unprecedented Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. That attack saw militants with Hamas and allied groups kill about 1,200 people and take some 250 others hostage.
According to health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory, who do not differentiate between civilian and combatant casualties, the war has killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza so far. The strike on the school came a day after Israeli bombs for displaced Palestinians in the al-Mawasi designated humanitarian zone, killing at least 40 people, according to Palestinian medics.
The Wednesday strike flattened part of the U.N.-run facility where Gazans had sought shelter, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.UNRWA says 6 staffers killed in Israeli raids near Gaza school
«For the fifth time, Israeli forces bombed the UNRWA-run Al-Jawni School, killing 18 citizens, including two UNRWA staff members, children, and women, and injuring more than 18 others», Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense rescue agency, said in a social media post.
UNRWA later said six of its staffers had been killed in two Israeli air raids on the Nuseirat school and its surroundings, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
«Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people», the U.N. agency said in a post on X. «Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.
