The IDF said: “The schools were used by Hamas’s al-Furqan Battalion as a hiding place for its terrorist operatives and as command centres used to plan and execute attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.”
Footage on social media purported to show bodies inside one of the schools as rescuers evacuated casualties, including children.
Palestinian media said at least 30 people were killed in the strikes. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said most of the dead were women and children.
He added that more people were believed to be buried under the rubble.
The attack on the al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools came on the day of an attack on a camp for displaced people in a hospital in central Gaza, which reportedly killed at least five people.
On Saturday, an air strike on Hamama School in Gaza City reportedly killed at least 17 people.
Days earlier, a strike on Dalal al-Mughrabi School killed 15, according to officials,
The IDF says it takes care to minimise risk to civilians when conducting strikes but Palestinian Civil Defence described Sunday’s attacks as “a massacre”.
In a separate development on Sunday morning, two people were killed in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Holon. The Palestinian attacker was later shot dead, police said.
The Israel-Gaza war began on 7 October, when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
The attack triggered a massive Israeli military response, which has killed at least 39,480 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
