Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City kills over 60 people, Palestinian health officials say

An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City early Saturday, killing more than 60 people, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest strikes in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.

The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, claiming without evidence that it hit a Hamas command center within the school.

The strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City wounded an additional 47 people, the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service said. The facility, like almost all of the Gaza Strip’s schools, has been used as a shelter for people who have been forced to flee their homes by the war.

The strike hit without warning in the early morning before sunrise as people were praying at a mosque at the school, according to Abu Anas, a witness who worked to rescue people.

“There were people praying, there were people washing, and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people,” he said. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”

According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged in the war as of July 6. In June, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials.

Israel has blamed the civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying the group endangers noncombatants by using schools and residential neighborhoods as bases for operations and attacks.

The Israeli military acknowledged the school it hit Saturday is located next to a mosque serving as a shelter for Gaza City residents.

The strike came as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for the two parties to achieve a cease-fire agreement that could help calm soaring tensions in the region following the assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others.

More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives. Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area of less than 20 square miles on the Gaza coast.