Gaza’s civil defence service said the school was sheltering displaced people. Hamas said in a statement on Telegram that the report the school was being used for military purposes was “false” and “displaced, sick and wounded people, most of whom were women and children” were killed.
Witness Mustafa Rafati told the BBC the explosion shook his body and he fell from the blow. Afraid, he said he ran inside the school and saw body parts in a “terrifying scene.”
“I was shocked,” he said.
Verified video from the scene shows a chaotic situation, with people running around a compound covered in rubble. Men carry two bloodied children in their arms while a woman hugs another, and a group carries an injured man on a stretcher. A body lies on the ground covered in a blanket.
The IDF said that before the strike it took steps to reduce the risk to civilians “including the use of appropriate munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence”.
Gaza’s health ministry said 53 people had been killed and 189 injured since Saturday morning due to IDF bombing in Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis.
The strike occurred as Israel continues its months-long military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, spoke out against the Deir al-Balah strike on X, writing that it occurred “at the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.
“Ceasefire has to happen now,” he wrote.
Ceasefire talks, led by the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, are scheduled to begin Sunday between representatives from Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
