Body parts were strewn around the rubble, with over 90 persons dead after Israel’s warplanes attacked Gaza early Saturday.
Dawn prayers were shattered by the early morning triple air strike at Al-Tabieen religious school and mosque in Gaza City. In the aftermath, body parts were strewn around the rubble. And charred, bloodied bodies slumped in the wreckage of the two-storey complex.
The school housed displaced Palestinians.
Grim-faced volunteers piled corpses in blood-stained blankets into an ambulance, as seriously wounded men lay groaning on the ground.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 people were killed, 17 of them women and children, making it one of the war’s deadliest strikes.
We were precise — Israel
Israel’s military disputed the death toll. They said the school was targeted with “precision munitions” because it “served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility”.
“Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information,” a statement said.
The military has repeatedly made similar accusations after strikes on school shelters.
Also, Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani spoke. He said that about 20 Hamas and Islamic militants were operating from the Al-Tabieen complex.
“The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” he posted on X.
However, Hamas has previously denied Israeli claims that it uses schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities for military aims.
The Islamic Jihad, a militant group fighting alongside Hamas, said the strike took place “during the dawn prayer”.
Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the Gaza government media office spoke to AFP. He said the strike “resulted in more than 100 martyrs and dozens of injuries, most of which are in severe and critical condition”.
Gaza government media sources said the school was housing around 250 people, about half of them women and children.
‘They were just praying’
Such incidents have become a pattern in recent weeks.
According to an AFP tally, at least 14 schools sheltering Gaza’s displaced have been hit since July 6. This has killed more than 280 people.
“Peaceful people — women, children, and youths — were performing the Fajr prayer as usual when suddenly a missile hit them,” said Abu Wassim. He lives nearby and came to survey the scene.
“They were reduced to remains. Children were torn apart, and women were burned. What can we say or do? What is in our power?”
As the sun climbed and mourners gathered, one man stroked the face of a dead child shrouded in a plastic body bag.
“They dropped a missile on them while they were just praying. Fear God, people! Fear God, Arabs!” a woman wailed over the body.
Another man looked lost as he held a small corpse wrapped in a blanket. Nearby, six body bags lay on the ground, three of them children. Tattered Korans were piled on a window ledge.
“We woke up before dawn to the sound of a strike,” said Sakr, a resident from the neighbourhood who gave just one name.
Another man said: “You can’t even recognise the bodies, there were scattered remains.
“The ones who were struck are displaced people taking shelter in a school. What’s their fault? What have they done wrong?”
Mohammad Al-Mughayyir, director of the supply and equipment department of Gaza’s civil defence service, told AFP that six schools in Gaza City had been targeted in the past week alone.
Hamas reacts
Later on Saturday, Gaza Civil Defence Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists that the strike “directly targeted” two floors of the school.
The strike hit “the upper floor housing women and children and the ground floor that was used for prayers by the displaced people,” he said.
The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians. This is according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza. 39, the Israeli military says, are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,790 people. This is according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.(AFP)
