IDF strikes UN school in central Gaza where it says dozens of terrorists were gathered

Army says 20-30 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were in three classrooms, separate from area where civilians sheltering.

The Israel Defense Forces carried out an airstrike on what it said was a compound used by dozens of Hamas fighters inside a United Nations school in central Gaza before dawn on Thursday.

The IDF said it took extensive precautions to reduce harm to civilians in the “precise strike” on the compound embedded within a UNRWA school in Nuseirat, where 20-30 terrorists, some of whom participated in the October 7 onslaught, were gathered.

Palestinian civilians displaced by the war were also sheltering at the school.

According to the military, the members of the terror groups were struck while gathered in three classrooms, separate from an area where civilians were sheltering.

The Hamas-run government media office claimed at least 27 people were killed in what it termed the Israeli “massacre.” UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma told Reuters that the number of those reported killed in the Israeli offensive on the Nuseirat school was between 35 and 45, but the number could not confirmed at this stage, she added. <Source>

[OCS: How many of the dead were terrorists, human shields, or simply collateral damage from stray bullets and ricochets?]

Israeli Strike Kills Dozens at Civilian Shelter in Gaza

[OCS: Note the sympathetic one-sided picture propaganda and its caption, “Palestinians mourned relatives killed in an Israeli strike on a U.N.-run school in the Nuseirat refugee area, outside a hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza, on Thursday.Credit...Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press]

The Israeli military said it had been targeting militants who were hiding in the complex in an effort to evade attack. The former U.N. school was housing 6,000 displaced Gazans.

An Israeli airstrike on Thursday hit a United Nations school complex in central Gaza that had become a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians and, Israel said, Hamas militants. Gazan health officials said dozens of people were killed, including women and children.

The strike was the latest in a deadly surge of fighting in central Gaza, where Israeli forces have announced an offensive against what they describe as a renewed insurgency by Hamas.

The strike hit a compound that UNRWA had operated, the main U.N. body that aids Palestinians in Gaza. About 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the complex, located in the central Gaza area of Nuseirat, when the strike took place, said Juliette Touma, an UNRWA spokeswoman.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had targeted three classrooms in the school building that held 20 to 30 Palestinian militants affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militia that, like Hamas, is backed by Iran. Israeli forces had twice postponed the strike to reduce civilian casualties, the military said.

The precise toll could not be verified, but the Gaza Health Ministry said that of the roughly 40 people killed in the attack, 14 were children and nine were women. Later in the day, The Associated Press reported different numbers, saying at least 33 people died, including three women and nine children, citing the hospital morgue. <Source>

[OCS: Note the use of Hamas casualty figures, which are known to be fake or wildly exaggerated.]

Israel used U.S. munition in deadly strike on U.N. school, experts say

Experts reviewed verified video from the scene and identified the weapons fragments as a U.S.-made small-diameter bomb.

[OCS: What “experts” had access to forensic evidence at the site? Certainly not Americans. And pictures are not reliable, especially when Hamas is known to plant evidence at civilian sites.]

Israeli fighter jets appear to have used a U.S.-made munition in a strike that killed dozens of people inside a U.N. school in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to five weapons experts who examined verified footage from the debris.

The Israel Defense Forces said the aircraft attacked “three classrooms” with precision weapons, targeting a group of militants it said included fighters who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks.

But the facility in the Nuseirat refugee camp was also packed with thousands of civilians displaced by the war, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which aids Palestinian refugees. The morgue at nearby al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital said late Thursday that 33 people were killed in the strike, revising down an earlier toll, the Associated Press reported. The morgue said nine children, three women and 21 men were killed, according to the AP.

The Gaza Health Ministry, citing the hospital, initially said 40 people had been killed, including 14 children and nine women. It was not immediately clear what caused the discrepancy, the AP reported.

The nose cone of a GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, which is manufactured by Boeing, was visible in footage taken by an eyewitness, Emad Abu Shawish, in the aftermath of the attack. His images were verified by Storyful and independently geolocated by The Washington Post.

“We are confident that our activities were effective in limiting and reducing the harm to civilians in the area,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an IDF spokesman, said at a news conference Thursday. He said that 20 to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were operating from a compound inside the school, and that the strike was called off twice to limit civilian casualties.

In a report last month, the Biden administration said that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel has violated international law while using U.S. weapons in its military campaign in Gaza. The United States is Israel’s chief weapons supplier. But, the report found, there was insufficient information to draw a firm conclusion in any specific instances, meaning U.S. military aid could continue to flow to the country.

An analysis of several thousand distinct incident reports from Gaza, published by an independent panel of experts, found instead that Israel’s military has acted with a “systematic disregard for international humanitarian law, with recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects.” <Source>

Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas

[OCS: Note the sympathetic one-sided picture propaganda and its caption, “Palestinians mourn relatives killed in an Israeli strike on a U.N.-run school in the Nusseirat refugee camp, outside a hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 6, 2024. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)]

Palestinians mourn relatives killed in an Israeli strike on a U.N.-run school in the Nusseirat refugee camp, outside a hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 6, 2024. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas

An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.

It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensive. A day earlier, the military announced a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there.

Casualties from the strike arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, which had already been overwhelmed by a stream of constant ambulances since the central Gaza incursion began 24 hours earlier, said Omar al-Derawi, a photographer working for the hospital.

[OCS: Propaganda photos using “crisis actors” are a known element of Hamas propaganda. Some show them smoking with their head out of the shroud.]

Videos circulating online appeared to show several wounded people being treated on the floor of the hospital, a common scene in Gaza’s overwhelmed medical wards. Electricity in much of the hospital is out because staff are rationing fuel supplies for the generator. <Source>

[OCS: Upon entry to the hospital on previous occasions, electricity was present, and generators were running – and supplying power to Hamas terror tunnels.]