Dozens killed in 2 consecutive strikes on Bureij school

Occupation forces launched two airstrikes within hours of each other on a school in central Gaza's Bureij area on Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses told Mada Masr the second bombardment killed people who had rushed to the scene to help retrieve those wounded in the first attack from under the rubble.

The Gaza Government Media Office announced on Wednesday that the two attacks killed 33 people and injured 73.

The Abu Humeisa school in the Bureij camp was housing thousands of displaced people, the media office said. Raed Tafesh, an eyewitness who was present at the school at the time of the strike, said that the Israeli military had threatened to attack a nearby house before the attacks.

The first airstrike targeted classroom buildings, where a number of displaced individuals were taking refuge, according to Tafesh, who said that buildings were completely destroyed. He added that several tents pitched in the school courtyard were also burned down in the attack, along with the people sheltering inside them.

“The screams inside the tents were very loud,” said Tafesh. “Wounded people were everywhere and some of the bodies were scattered into parts, we had to gather them in bags.”

People killed and injured in the first attack were transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah and Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, according to the Palestinian News Agency (Wafa).

It was while rescuing the injured that Tafesh heard the sounds of another wave of strikes on the school.

“It was horrific,” Mohamed Mesbeh, an eyewitness who was in the school’s vicinity at the time, told Mada Masr. “Dozens of people were working on rescuing the victims but suddenly became victims themselves, many of them turning into body parts.”

Echoing its routine justification for attacking civilian areas, an Israeli military spokesperson claimed the Abu Humeisa school was a Hamas “command and control headquarters.”  He added that the Israeli military took the “necessary measures to reduce civilian casualties.” 

Medical sources told Wafa on Tuesday evening that search and rescue operations were still ongoing to retrieve those trapped under the rubble.

Two other Israeli strikes hit the Karama School in the Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City on Wednesday, medical officials told Reuters.

16 people were killed in the strikes, according to Wafa. Reporters in the strip and a family member of  journalist Nour Abdou said he was targeted as well. 

The eastern part of Gaza City has been heavily attacked by Israeli forces who have been pushing people out of their homes and into the city’s west. 

The attacks come a few days after Israel announced that its Cabinet had approved a plan for the military to fully seize Gaza, forcibly displacing the entire population into the southern part of the strip.

The Gaza Government Media Office condemned the school attacks in its initial statement after the incident on Tuesday, describing them as part of the Occupation’s “intentional and systemic” targeting of displacement centers. Since Israel began its aggression on the strip in October 2023, the media office said, 234 displacement shelters have been struck.

Over 400,000 people have been displaced in the past six-eight weeks alone, according to a recent report by the United Nations Refugees and Works Agency (UNRWA), which tracked displacement since Israel shattered the fragile ceasefire in March and relaunched its invasion and daily bombardment of Palestinians across the strip. 

Calling on international and humanitarian bodies to take urgent action to push for an end to the war, UNRWA said the attacks come amid the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system, including its facilities, personnel and supplies, adding that the closure of border crossings and the ongoing aid blockade have exacerbated the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. 

No food, fuel or any other supplies have entered Gaza since March 2, when Israel abandoned the prisoner exchange outlined in the ceasefire deal and imposed a total aid blockade on the strip.