Nearly 100 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil defense says

JERUSALEM – An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least 93 people in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, civil defense authorities said, in one of the single deadliest bombings of the monthslong war amid a U.S.-led attempt to push Israel and Hamas toward a long-delayed cease-fire deal.

Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said the al-Taba’een school in Gaza City was housing about 6,000 displaced Palestinians when the bombs struck around 4:30 a.m. He said at least 11 children and six women were among those killed, with at least 54 injured and dozens missing.

Video from the scene showed scores of bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets laid in the schoolyard after the strike, as women crouched over corpses in grief. Bassal said the toll, with many of the bodies charred and unidentifiable, was expected to rise.

“The recovery operations are indescribable,” he said in interview.

The Israel Defense Forces said the strike targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants it claimed were operating a command and control node from within the school, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields.

An Israeli military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with IDF protocol, said the strike employed three precision munitions and hit a prayer hall, which he said was used by militants, on the ground floor of the three-story school building.

Residents, meanwhile, said the hall, like the school’s upper floors, had been converted into a shelter for Gazans forced to flee their homes during the 10-month war.

The strike, two days after a dozen people were killed in two earlier Israeli strikes on Gaza schools, came at a delicate moment for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing mounting pressure to finalize a deal that would halt the fighting and release hostages held by Hamas.

The Biden administration has spearheaded an intense diplomatic campaign in recent days to compel the two sides to reach an agreement. U.S. officials have likewise been racing to head off a wider regional conflict, as Iran and Lebanon’s powerful paramilitary force Hezbollah promise to attack Israel over a series of recent strikes on militant leaders in those countries.

The site of Saturday’s bombing in Gaza City, and the scale of the bloodshed, generated immediate global statements of alarm and condemnation.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, expressed concern about the strike and said it had asked for more information. Like other nations that have backed Israel’s response to the bloody Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Washington has blamed the militant group for using civilian sites to mask its military activities but has also called on Israel to exercise greater caution to keep noncombatants safe.

“Far too many civilians continue to be killed and wounded,” National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement. “This underscores the urgency of a cease-fire and hostage deal.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy of Britain, another key ally of Israel, said he was “appalled” by the incident. “Hamas must stop endangering civilians. Israel must comply with international humanitarian law,” he wrote on social media.

France decried the targeting of Gaza schools and what its Foreign Ministry called Saturday’s “intolerable” death toll.

The governments of Qatar, Egypt and other Arab nations meanwhile responded with outrage. “This is an indication that the Israeli government seeks to thwart and frustrate (cease-fire) efforts,” Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said.

Several eyewitnesses described a terrifying series of events during the strike, which occurred in morning darkness when some people were performing dawn prayers and others were asleep.

The windows of Amjad al-Sheikh’s nearby home shattered. “My body flew through the air from the force of the explosion,” he said.

Sheikh, 32, and two of his brothers rushed to the school to help with rescue efforts, where they used the light from their phones “to track the voices of the wounded, including children and women asking for help to save their lies.”

“I never imagined I would see such a hideous and painful scene,” he said.

Hashem Hamada, 31, a photojournalist who also lives close to the school, raced to the school after been awoken by a giant explosion. He said he helped retrieve 10 bodies, including that of a child.

Most of the wounded were transported to nearby al-Ahli hospital. Motasim Dalloul, 45, a local resident whose child once attended classes at the Taba’een school, spoke to The Post from inside the hospital, where he saw dozens of wounded. “People were crying and wailing,” he said.

Nadav Shoshani, international spokesperson for the IDF, wrote on social media that roughly 20 “Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including senior commanders,” were operating from the school, “using it to carry out terrorist attacks.” He said that an initial review found that the Gazan authorities’ casualty estimates “do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike.” The IDF did not provide alternative casualty figures.

After Israel’s strikes on other Gaza schools earlier this week, the IDF also said those sites too were being used by Hamas.

Tamer Kirolos, regional director for Save the Children, an aid organization, said it was the deadliest attack on a school in Gaza since October.

“It is devastating to see the toll this has taken including so many children and people at the school for dawn prayers,” Kirolos said in a statement. “All parties must respect the protected status of schools and not use schools as battlegrounds.”

The United Nations’ Human Rights Office earlier this week reported that at least 17 schools in Gaza had been targeted in the past month, saying that the reported deaths from those strikes suggested “a failure to comply with the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in carrying out these attacks.”

The incident has the potential to further inflame tensions between Tel Aviv and Washington. In addition to friction over a months-long delay in reaching a cease-fire deal, the White House on Friday condemned statements by one of Netanyahu’s ministers about a possible agreement.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby rebuked the comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who stated that a cease-fire deal would be a “surrender to Hamas,” calling the minister’s remarks “outrageous and absurd.”

Jack Lew, U.S. ambassador to Israel, also told Israeli media that Smotrich’s comments could put Israel “at strategic risk.”

While the United States has called on both parties to accept the current cease-fire proposal, some U.S. officials have voiced frustration with Netanyahu’s negotiating stance in recent weeks, complaining that he introduced new conditions after President Joe Biden publicly laid out a cease-fire framework in May.

Hoping to shatter the impasse, the United States, Qatar and Egypt, which have all played a role in mediating talks, issued a joint statement this week urging both sides to return to the negotiating table on Aug. 15. “There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay,” the three countries’ leaders said.

Netanyahu’s office has said that Israel will send representatives to the talks “to finalize the details for implementing the framework agreement.” Hamas gave no immediate response.

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Harb reported from London, El-Chamaa from Beirut, Suliman also from London and Ables from Seoul. Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.