At least 18 people, including United Nations staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, according to the Gaza Civil Defense and hospital officials. At least 44 others were injured, they said. <\/p>\n
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief, said on X that six of its employees were \u201ckilled today when two airstrikes hit a school and its surroundings in Nuseirat,\u201d in what is \u201cthe highest death toll among our staff in a single incident.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that the Israeli Air Force had \u201cconducted a precise strike on terrorists\u201d operating inside the school compound. It claimed the school \u201cwas used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF said \u201cnumerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,\u201d saying this was \u201ca further example of the Hamas terrorist organization\u2019s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.\u201d <\/p>\n
The strike targeted the Al Jaouni UNRWA facility, which has not operated as a functioning school since October. An estimated 12,000 displaced people, including women and children, have been sheltering in the school, said UNRWA. <\/p>\n
This is the fifth time that the school compound has been targeted since October 7, according to the UN agency and a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson. <\/p>\n
Mahmoud Basal, a Gaza Civil Defense spokesman, said search operations were ongoing amid the rubble, with children and women among the injured. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnother school sheltering displaced people hit in Nuseirat today,\u201d UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, adding that UN staff were working and \u201cproviding support to families who have sought refuge in the school.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSince the beginning of this war, at least 220 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza,\u201d he added. \u201cThe longer impunity prevails, the more international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions will become irrelevant.\u201d <\/p>\n
Footage from the scene showed debris strewn around a compound and blood stains on the ground. A hole has punctured what appears to be a classroom and among the rubble is canned food and the dust-covered belongings of displaced Palestinians. <\/p>\n
A man carrying human remains said: \u201cBrutality, I don\u2019t know what to say.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another man searches desperately for his wife and four children. \u201cI don\u2019t know where they are, my son, my three daughters are all missing,\u201d Hani Haniya said from a classroom in the building. \u201cThey normally sit here, I don\u2019t know where my wife is, she survived the last strike.\u201d <\/p>\n
Inside a wrecked room at the school, Fadel Abu Hdayyeh said it was used to store food for displaced Palestinians. \u201cThose who were working here were providing aid. We don\u2019t have any resistance fighters here, none of them enter the school. Look around, it\u2019s all food aid,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe people who were distributing the aid are the ones who died, civilians. We are all civilians here who are dying,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, footage shows trucks and ambulances transferring injured people and bodies to the hospital. The emergency room floor is overcrowded with the injured while medical teams struggle to provide aid. <\/p>\n
Nuseirat is one of Gaza\u2019s most densely populated camps, and its population has swollen since the war began. <\/p>\n
Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli bombardment killed one child and six other people in the Qizan Al-Najjar area, near Khan Younis, according to Gaza\u2019s Civil Defense. That followed an overnight strike on a family home in the town of Khuza\u2019a, east of Khan Younis, where at least 11 people were killed, according to the Civil Defense. <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/i> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least 18 people, including United Nations staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}