(6 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: THE NUMBER OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN KILLED IN THE STRIKE HAS BEEN UPDATED FOLLOWING A CORRECTION FROM THE MORGUE++
++PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS FOOTAGE OF WRAPPED DEAD BODIES++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nuseirat Refugee Camp, central Gaza Strip – 6 June 2024
1. Wide of destruction in classroom inside UNRWA school after Israeli airstrike
2. Blood on wall
3. Various of destruction in classrooms
4. Various of exterior shots of UNRWA school after Israeli airstrike
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Deir Al-Balah, Central Gaza Strip – 6 June 2024
5. People placing body on the ground
6. Various of people gathering near bodies of victims
STORYLINE:
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including three women and nine children, according to local health officials.
The hospital initially reported that nine women and 14 children were among those killed in the strike on the school in Nuseirat. The hospital morgue later amended those records to show that the dead included three women, nine children and 21 men. It was not immediately clear what caused the discrepancy.
An Associated Press reporter had counted the bodies but was unable to look beneath the shrouds.
The Israeli military said Hamas militants were operating from within the school.
It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensives in the Gaza Strip.
A day earlier, the military announced a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there.
Troops repeatedly have swept back into sections of the Gaza Strip they have previously invaded, underscoring the resilience of the militant group despite Israel’s nearly eight-month onslaught in the territory.
Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA.
The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.
Maha Issa, a young woman who was sheltering at the school and who lost her father in the airstrike, said "at 3 p.m. we heard five missiles hitting the school. I went out running and found the fire burning in three classrooms."
Casualties from school strike arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, which had already been overwhelmed by a stream of constant ambulances since the central Gaza incursion began 24 hours earlier, said Omar al-Derawi, a photographer working for the hospital.
Videos circulating online appeared to show several wounded people being treated on the floor of the hospital, a common scene in Gaza’s overwhelmed medical wards. Electricity in much of the hospital is out because staff are rationing fuel supplies for the generator.
Separate strikes in central Gaza killed another 15 people, nearly all men.
Both strikes occurred in Nuseirat, one of several built-up refugee camps in Gaza dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the new state.
Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said that the army wasn’t aware of any civilian casualties in the strike.
AP video shot by Abdal Kareem Hana
Production: Wafaa Shurafa
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