AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The Israeli military carried out airstrikes against a school in central Gaza City when displaced Palestinians were performing dawn prayers, killing at least 100 people.
The bomb struck Al-Taba’een School during prayers in the Daraj neighborhood. Local media reports that a fire has broken out at the school, and rescue teams are working to contain it.
According to residents of Gaza, three rockets hit the school while people were attending prayers inside the building, which serves as a shelter for displaced individuals.
Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported that Palestinians are trapped inside the bombed school as a fire rips through the building. Shabat added that rescue teams are unable to assist those trapped by the flames due to the Israeli military cutting water access to the area.
The Israeli military has claimed that the school bombed in the deadly attack this morning was serving as a “Hamas headquarters.” Despite the preliminary death toll of more than 100, the Israeli military stated that “several steps were taken to reduce the possibility of civilian casualties.”
Gaza’s Government Media Office slammed the attack as another “act of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
“The Israeli occupation army commits a massacre inside the Al-Taba’een School in Gaza City, which claimed the lives of more than 100 martyrs and dozens of injuries. This clearly comes within the framework of the crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people,” it said.
“The occupation army directly bombed the displaced people while they were performing the dawn prayer, and this caused the number of martyrs to rise rapidly,” added the office.
“Due to the horror of the massacre and the large number of martyrs, medical teams, civil defence, and relief and emergency teams have not been able to recover the bodies of all the martyrs so far,” it added.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the occupation’s perpetration of this horrific massacre, and we call on the whole world to condemn it. We hold the Israeli occupation and the American administration fully responsible for this massacre,” said the office.
“We call on the international community and international and international organisations to put pressure on the occupation to stop the crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing against civilians and displaced persons in the Gaza Strip, and to stop the cascade of blood flowing in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
The Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip since October last year has killed more than 40,000 people, mostly women and children.
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