At least 33 dead as Israeli strike hits school sheltering displaced in Gaza

Civil defence agency said more than 100 others were wounded in the strike on Dar al-Arqam School in northeast of Gaza.

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At least 33 Palestinians, including 18 children, were killed and more than 100 injured on Thursday in Israeli air strikes that hit two schools sheltering displaced families in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood, according to local officials.

The Gaza Government Media Office said 29 people were killed at Dar al-Arqam School, which had been converted into a shelter. A Civil Defence spokesperson said the school was hit by at least four missiles.

Al Jazeera, citing local sources, reported an additional four deaths in a separate Israeli attack on the Fahd School, which was also being used as a shelter for displaced civilians.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a Hamas command center in Gaza City used for planning attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers. However, it remained unclear whether that strike was connected to the one on the schools.

Civilian shelters have been repeatedly targeted in the besieged enclave, where hundreds of thousands remain trapped amid relentless bombardment.

“What is going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world,” a spokesperson for Gaza’s emergency rescue services told Al Jazeera. “This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. Children are being killed with cold blood here in Gaza.”

According to medical sources, at least 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Thursday. In Gaza City alone, 58 were killed, with 21 bodies — including seven children — taken to al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, 14 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital — nine of them from the same family, including five children and four women. Another 19 bodies, including a pregnant woman and five children aged one to seven, were taken to the European Gaza Hospital.

The Gaza Government Media Office said Civil Defence teams are struggling to rescue those trapped under rubble due to severe equipment shortages, warning that the collapse of the health sector has left the region on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel’s month-long total siege of Gaza has sealed all crossings and blocked the entry of vital humanitarian aid, including food, fuel, and medicine. The blockade has compounded already dire living conditions and left health facilities overwhelmed and under-resourced.