Israeli strike on Gaza school kills dozens in their sleep
Rescue teams have recovered at least 32 bodies from the rubble of the destroyed school with more victims expected
An Israeli warplane bombed a UNRWA-affiliated school in Nuseirat Camp in Gaza early on 6 June, massacring dozens of Palestinians in the upper floors of the school as they slept, WAFA News Agency reported.
Thousands of Palestinians were sheltering in the school after being displaced from their homes amid Israel's seven-month military assault on the besieged enclave.
WAFA's correspondent reported on Thursday morning that medical and civil defense teams had recovered 32 bodies from the rubble of Al-Nusairat Preparatory School. The director of Gaza’s government media office later told told Reuters that at least 40 people were killed.
Ismail al-Thawabta, a spokesman for Gaza's Government Media Office, said “huge numbers of dead and wounded” were arriving at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.
“This horrible massacre committed by the Israeli occupation is clear evidence of genocide, ethnic cleansing against civilians, including women and children and displaced people in the Gaza Strip,” he told reporters.
The dead and wounded were overwhelming the hospital, “which is filled with wounded patients three times beyond its clinical capacity,” he added. “This portends a real disaster that will lead to an even greater increase in the number of martyrs.”
The Israeli military claimed it had “eliminated” several militants in a “precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside a UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat,” in the central Gaza Strip.
However, an AFP photographer confirmed Palestinians were sheltering in the school and saw them removing blood-stained mattresses amid the destruction.
WAFA reported further that an Israeli warplane bombed a house owned by Al-Madani family in Nuseirat camp, killing six people.
Israeli warplanes and artillery also struck multiple areas in central Gaza, including areas on the east of Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi camps and the Tal al-Hawa and Zaytoun neighborhoods southwest of Gaza City.
Additionally, the Israeli warplanes and artillery bombed areas in neighborhoods in eastern and central Rafah.
Israel fired artillery towards homes east of the town of Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
Thursday's killings come amid an escalation of violence from Israeli forces in recent days. Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, said that before the latest attack on Nuseirat, Israeli troops had killed at least 102 people in 24 hours.
On 27 May, Israel bombed a tent encampment in Rafah, killing 45.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 36,586 Palestinians have been killed and 83,074 wounded in Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
At least 11,000 people are missing, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes bombed by Israeli forces.