An Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school packed with hundreds of refugees in central Gaza has killed at least 27 people, local officials said.
The Israeli military announced that it had conducted an airstrike on a UN school where a 'Hamas camp' was located.
Local journalists told the BBC that Israeli warplanes fired two missiles into a classroom on the top floor of a school in the Nuceirat refugee camp.
Hamas' media office accused Israel of committing a “horrible massacre.”
Ambulances and rescue teams are rushing the injured and dead to nearby hospitals.
Videos posted on social media showed destroyed classrooms and bodies wrapped in shrouds in a morgue.
“No more war! We have become refugees dozens of times over. They killed our sleeping children,” screams a woman injured in the attack in one video.
Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas' media bureau, dismissed Israeli claims that the UN school concealed a Hamas command post.
“The occupation uses false and fabricated stories to justify the atrocious crimes it committed against dozens of refugees,” he told Reuters.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the jets carried out “surgical strikes against a Hamas base buried inside Unrwa School in the Nuseirat region.”
It said it had killed a Hamas and Islamic Jihad “terrorist” involved in an attack on southern Israel on October 7. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage in the attack.
At least 36,580 people have since died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The IDF said it took steps before the airstrikes “to reduce the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians.”
