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SvennoJ on 20 August 2024
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Israeli army bombs Gaza City school



Our correspondent on the ground in the Gaza Strip reports that Israeli warplanes have attacked the Mustafa Hafez school, which shelters displaced people in the west of Gaza City.

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza says it is sending its teams to the location of the school after getting reports of its bombing. Mustafa Hafez school has been a place offering displaced families some sort of refuge on the western side of Gaza City. It served as a last resort.

The Israeli military has now targeted it without warning. The attack killed three Palestinians and reportedly caused more injuries. The victims are being transferred to Ahli Hospital for treatment.

Witnesses have also confirmed more air strikes in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, destroying a number of houses.


Death toll from Gaza City school strike rises to 12

Gaza’s Civil Defence force has released an updated casualty toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City’s Mustafa Hafez school.

So far, 12 people have been confirmed killed in the attack, the Civil Defence said. Mahmoud Basal, the civil defence spokesman, told AFP that bodies were being pulled out of the school, whose second floor was directly hit by a bomb.

At least two of those killed were children, said Basal.

Others are still missing under the building’s rubble, with rescuers unable to reach them due to a lack of equipment, it said.


Paramedics carry a body from the site of an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza City, on August 20

Gaza civil defence says five bodies recovered in central Gaza

Civil defence crews and medical teams have recovered the bodies after Israeli forces struck the Abu Zaid family in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. They were transferred to al-Awda Hospital, a statement on Telegram added.

The Wafa news agency said six civilians were killed and others were injured as a result of the Israeli bombing of the family’s house.


Civil defence says 700 displaced Palestinians sheltered in targeted school



The strike was launched against one of the main evacuation centres on the western side of Gaza City. According to initial information we managed to obtain from the civil defence, they managed to recover 10 Palestinians who were found killed.

The strike left a great deal of destruction on the buildings of the Mustafa Hafez school that was housing 700 displaced Palestinians, according to the civil defence. Israel, in the past period, had targeted at least nine evacuation centres only in the north of Gaza.

Emergency workers say they were forced to leave victims under the remnants of these shuttered buildings, because of a lack of essential equipment.


PRCS recovers two killed in Israeli strikes

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says in a post on X that it transported the bodies of two people killed in an Israeli attack Ain Jalut area of southern Gaza’s Rafa. It said that it transported the bodies to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.


Still trying to retrieve bodies at Mustafa Hafez School

The Civil Defence teams say that they’re still searching under the rubble for more bodies.

So far, they were able to retrieve only 12 bodies, among them children, women and journalist Hamzah Mortaja, who was working on a story about displaced Palestinians in schools. Hamzah is the brother of Yasser Mortaja, another journalist who was killed in the Great March of Return in 2018.

Now back to the Mustafa Hafez School – it had at least 700 families that were sheltering from different parts of the Gaza Strip, especially the northern parts and Shujayea.

After Israeli forces targeted the school, the ceiling of the building collapsed on top of the people. That’s why the Civil Defence teams are having a lot of challenges and obstacles to retrieve the bodies, because they do not have the equipment, so they’re trying to rescue those Palestinians with their bare hands.