Israeli airstrike on Gaza school sheltering displaced people kills at least 18, including UN staff, Palestinian officials say

By CNN Newsource

Published September 11, 2024 4:38 PM

By Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder, Lauren Izso, Kara Fox, Sana Noor Haq and Mohammad Al Sawalhi, CNN

(CNN) — At least 18 people, including United Nations staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, according to the Gaza Civil Defense and hospital officials. At least 44 others were injured, they said.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief, said on X that six of its employees were killed “when two airstrikes hit a school and its surroundings in Nuseirat,” in what is “the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that the Israeli Air Force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists” operating inside the school compound. It claimed the school “was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.”

Later on Thursday, the IDF said three of the UNRWA employees killed in the strike were members of Hamas, but did not immediately provide evidence to support the allegation.

UNRWA said the three people named by the IDF were teachers, and their names were not included in previous lists of UNRWA staffers that Israel claimed were members of Hamas, including a list from July.

The IDF said earlier that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” saying the incident was “a further example of the Hamas terrorist organization’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.”

The strike targeted the Al Jaouni UNRWA facility, which has not operated as a school since October. An estimated 12,000 displaced people, including women and children, have been sheltering in the school, said UNRWA.

This is the fifth time that the school compound has been targeted since October 7, according to the UN agency and a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson.

Mahmoud Basal, a Gaza Civil Defense spokesman, said search operations were ongoing amid the rubble, with children and women among the injured.

The strike drew condemnation from various officials, including the UN chief.

“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X. “These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”

His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, added on Thursday that “the IDF stated that they had targeted a command-and-control center in the compound. This incident must be independently and thoroughly investigated to ensure accountability.”

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said UN staff were working and “providing support to families who have sought refuge in the school.”

“Since the beginning of this war, at least 220 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza,” he wrote on X. “The longer impunity prevails, the more international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions will become irrelevant.”

Sam Rose, a senior official at UNRWA, told the BBC in an interview on Thursday that the school had been used as a polio vaccination center just a week before it was struck.

Earlier this month, the United Nations led a campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza against polio, amid a resurgence of the disease in the strip since the war began.

The head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also condemned the strike, writing on X: “Indeed, terribly tragic. No words can reflect the true horror and loss of life in Gaza.”

“Hospitals, schools and shelters have been repeatedly bombarded, resulting in deaths of civilians and humanitarians,” he added. “The carnage in Gaza must stop. Ceasefire!”

A colleague of the UN workers who were killed told CNN that the group had been distributing food aid earlier and had just sat down to eat lunch when Israel bombed the school.

The strike hit the school seconds after she had left to fetch water for the rest of the team from the next room, she said, asking to remain anonymous because she isn’t authorized to speak to the media.

“Suddenly, I heard a big explosion. Everything shook. I ran back to see that they had all vanished… all torn to pieces,” she told CNN on the phone, referring to her colleagues.

All six of the UNRWA workers had worked as teachers at the school before the war started and they were well-known members of the local community, she added.

“They are all loved by everyone. They helped and provided aid to everyone… What Israel is claiming is an unacceptable lie. No resistance fighters existed or operated from the school,” she said.

‘We are all civilians here’

Footage from the scene showed debris strewn around a compound and blood stains on the ground. A hole punctured what appeared to be a classroom and among the rubble was canned food and the dust-covered belongings of displaced Palestinians.

A man carrying human remains said: “Brutality, I don’t know what to say.”

Another man searched desperately for his wife and four children. “I don’t know where they are, my son, my three daughters are all missing,” Hani Haniya said from a classroom in the building. “They normally sit here, I don’t know where my wife is, she survived the last strike.”

Inside a wrecked room at the school, Fadel Abu Hdayyeh said it was used to store food for displaced Palestinians. “Those who were working here were providing aid. We don’t have any resistance fighters here, none of them enter the school. Look around, it’s all food aid,” he said.

“The people who were distributing the aid are the ones who died, civilians. We are all civilians here who are dying,” he added.

Hassan Al Hilu, who had been displaced from Gaza City, was working on the school’s sewage pipes when the strike hit the building. He was thrown in the air by the blast, injuring one of his hands.

“They are all very good people. I know them all. They are all UNRWA workers. They were always working on distributing aid, like rice, coupons, cleaning products to people in the school,” Al Hilu told CNN. “They were eating (when the strike hit).”

Rabia Al Burdeini, who lives next to the school, told CNN that some of the victims were “torn to pieces” while others lost their limbs. “Suddenly, without any prior warning.”

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, footage showed trucks and ambulances transferring injured people and bodies to the hospital. The emergency room floor was overcrowded with the injured while medical teams struggled to provide aid.

Nuseirat is one of Gaza’s most densely populated camps, and its population has swelled since the war began.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, more than 41,000 people have been killed and 95,000 injured in Gaza, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. CNN cannot verify casualty numbers. Medical records in the war-torn enclave do not differentiate between civilians and militants killed.

Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli bombardment killed one child and six other people in the Qizan Al-Najjar area, near Khan Younis, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. That followed an overnight strike on a family home in the town of Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, where at least 11 people were killed, according to the Civil Defense.

In a separate attack, at least nine members of the same family were killed in an Israeli strike in Jabalya, northern Gaza, it said. Footage of the aftermath, published by Gaza’s Civil Defense, showed the dismembered limbs of children. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Lucas Liliholm contributed to this report.