Gaza- More than 100 Palestinians have been killed following Israeli airstrikes on a school sheltering displaced people in the east of the Gaza Strip, as the occupying regime presses ahead with its months-long aggression on the besieged territory.
Palestine’s official WAFA news agency said over 100 citizens were killed and dozens injured on Saturday morning after the Israeli occupation forces bombed the al-Tabi’in school in the al-Daraj neighborhood east of Gaza City.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said three Israeli rockets hit the al-Tabin school, located in al-Daraj district, describing the incident as a “horrific massacre”, with some bodies catching fire.
According to local media reports citing eye witness accounts, around 250 people had been inside the prayer hall at the time of the raid.
Al Jazeera quoting, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, reported that the Israeli army used three bombs weighing 2,000 pounds (907kg) each in its attack on the al-Tabin school.
Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported that rescue teams were unable to help those trapped by the flames as the Israeli military had cut water access to the area.
Citing local sources, the agency said the occupation warplanes bombed the school while citizens were performing the dawn prayer.
The statement added that “due to the horror of the massacre and the large number of martyrs, the medical crews, civil defense, relief and emergency teams have not been able to retrieve the bodies of all the martyrs so far.”
The Israeli army confirmed the attack in a statement and claimed that the school “served as a hideout for Hamas commanders.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad rejected the claim. “The enemy army’s excuses for destroying schools are the same ones it used to destroy hospitals before, and they have been proven false,” it said in a statement.
The fresh strikes came after four schools across Gaza were attacked in the previous week.
On August 4, two schools serving as shelters for displaced people in Gaza City were hit by an Israeli strike, killing 30 and injuring several others. The previous day, an Israeli strike on Hamama School in Gaza City killed 17.
Backed by the US and its Western allies, the Israeli regime launched an all-out invasion of Gaza after it was caught off-guard by Operation al-Aqsa Storm inside the occupied territories in October last year.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, most of them women and children, and upwards of 91,000 others injured in the relentless Israeli air and ground assault.
Israel has also been enforcing a crippling siege on the coastal territory by choking off the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory.
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