Gaza rescuers say dead and wounded in new school strike

GAZA CITY: The civil defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza City killed at least one person.

The strike on Salah al-Din School in Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighbourhood was the latest to hit schools, many of which have been turned into shelters for people displaced by the Israel-Hamas war in the Palestinian territory.

At least six schools have been hit over the past nine days.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest incident but Israel says Hamas uses schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure for military purposes.

Hamas, at war with Israel since October 7, deny such accusations.

A civil defence spokesman reported the death, which a medic at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City confirmed. The medic added that four others were wounded at Salah al-Din School.

It was not immediately clear who ran the Salah al-Din facility.

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 38,664

The new school strike came as the health ministry in Gaza announced the death toll from an attack the previous day on the UN-run Abu Oreiban school had risen from 15 to 22.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said “thousands of displaced” were sheltering at the school in Nuseirat camp when it was bombed on Sunday, and that most of the dead were women and children.

Israel’s military confirmed it hit Abu Oreiban school, which it said had “served as a hideout” for and a base for “attacks” on Israeli troops.

With most of Gaza’s 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war started by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, many have sought refuge in school buildings.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The Hamas seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,664 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.