CNN –
A United Nations-run school in northern Gaza has apparently been devastatingly hit, the UN confirmed on Saturday. A senior UN official described the incident as “horrific”.
A video from Al-Fakhoura School in Jabalya – which was used as a shelter for displaced people – shows bloodied bodies in several rooms on two floors of the two-story building. There are also many women and children among the dead.
In one room, there appear to be about a dozen corpses covered in dust on the floor. The desks are scattered and shattered and a huge hole can be seen in one of the walls of the room. In the building’s courtyard, a canopy over a metal structure appears to have been torn off and debris can be seen on the ground.
Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, which runs the schools in Palestinian refugee camps and serves as the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza, confirmed the incident. The total number of victims is still unclear, she said, as information is still being received.
Touma could not confirm what caused the incident and who was responsible.
AlJazeera
A still from a video first broadcast on Al Jazeera shows the aftermath at a UN school that was attacked on Saturday. Al Jazeera did not disclose how it obtained the video.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who described the images as “horrific” in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said that thousands of displaced people were seeking refuge there at the time of the incident.
The Israeli military is investigating the incident, it told CNN, but did not comment further.
Egypt and Qatar have already blamed Israel’s military operation in the devastated enclave for the incident. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called it a “bomb attack” and said it was the latest in a series of Israeli violations against civilians in Gaza.
Qatar called on independent United Nations investigators to travel to Gaza to investigate what it described as “ongoing attacks on schools and hospitals.”
05:28 – Source: CNN
30 minutes to escape an air raid
Saturday’s incident was the second time in 24 hours that a UNRWA school in northern Gaza had been hit, the agency said. Another school in Zaitoun was hosting 4,000 people when it came under multiple attacks on Friday, Touma told CNN.
She added that ambulances were reportedly unable to reach the school, which she said was most likely due to the fighting and communications failure.
Dozens of people were likely killed in this incident, according to Lazzarini, who wrote: “These attacks must not become commonplace, they must stop. “A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer,” he added.
This is a developing story and will be updated.