People bury the bodies of Palestinians taken by the Israeli military during operations in Gaza and returned this week, in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 22, including women and children, the territory’s Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military confirmed it struck the school in the Jabalia refugee camp, saying it was targeting Hamas militants inside who were planning attacks on Israeli troops. The claim couldn’t be independently confirmed.
Footage from the al-Falouja School showed rescue workers rushing casualties out of the school compound amid widespread debris and crowds of people. One video showed men wrapping a mangled, severed torso in a plastic sheet and putting body parts into a cooler.
Gaza’s Health Ministry didn’t immediately provide a breakdown of how many of the casualties were women and children.
Israeli forces have repeatedly struck schools, saying Hamas fighters use them as “command centers” to plan attacks. The military says it uses precision weapons to avoid civilian casualties.
The strikes have brought heavy death tolls. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are living packed in schools across Gaza after fleeing their homes in the face of Israeli bombardment and offensives. More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced in the nearly yearlong conflict, according to the United Nations.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, authorities buried in a mass grave the bodies of 88 Palestinians that Israel returned to the Gaza Strip a day earlier. A bulldozer dug a trench in one of the city cemeteries, and the bodies were laid inside in blue plastic bags before the bulldozer covered them over with dirt.
Gaza’s Health Ministry denounced what it called the “inhumane and immoral” way Israel had treated the bodies, saying they were sent back piled in a truck with no information to identify them.
Throughout Israel’s offensives in Gaza, troops have dug up multiple graveyards as well as impromptu mass graves created at hospitals holding the bodies of Palestinians killed during raids on the facilities. The military has taken an unknown number of bodies into Israel, saying it is searching for potential bodies of Israeli hostages or militants.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry’s count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza, vowing to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack, during which militants killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. It blames civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, because the group’s fighters operate in residential areas and use civilian infrastructure.