Gaza’s civil defence agency said three Israeli rockets hit the school in the Palestinian territory’s al-Daraj district.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a Gaza school sheltering displaced people, according to Palestinians officials in Gaza.
“The occupation army directly bombed the displaced people while they were performing the dawn prayer, and this caused the number of martyrs to rise rapidly,” the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement following the attack on Saturday morning.
“This clearly comes within the framework of the crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people.”
Gaza’s civil defence agency said three Israeli rockets hit the school, 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.
Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported that rescue teams were unable to help those trapped by the flames as the Israeli military has cut water access to the area.
The Israeli army claimed the school was being used as a “Hamas headquarters” and it took measures to reduce civilian casualties.
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.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said that the bodies of those killed and the injured have been transported to Gaza’s Baptist Hospital.
The Israeli attack on al-Tabin school, located in al-Daraj district in central Gaza City, is the fourth such incident to happen in the last week alone, our correspondent said.
“The images coming out of the school immediately after the strike shows tens if not hundreds of bodies just on the ground, some of them in pieces,” she said.
In its statement, the Israeli army said its air forces struck a “command and control centre” that “served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders” and was also a shelter for the residents of Gaza City.
The Israeli army provided no evidence to support its claims.
Our correspondent said that in the previous incidents that it targeted schools, Israel never presented evidence to the public to prove its claim.
“The army has never once even given us information about he most notable of all these attacks,” she said.
Salhut also pointed out that looking at the images coming out of the school targeted early on Saturday, “the number of injuries, the damage to the buildings, really disprove the claims that there was precise weaponry that was used there”.
