Israeli strike on UN school kills dozens in Gaza

CAIRO/JERUSALEM — Israel hit a Gaza school on Thursday with what it described as a targeted airstrike on up to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters inside, and a Hamas official said 40 people were killed including women and children sheltering at the U.N. site.

Video footage showed Palestinians hauling away bodies and scores of injured in a hospital after the attack, which took place at a sensitive moment in mediated talks on a ceasefire that would involve releasing hostages held by Hamas and some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian boy, Imad al-Maqadmeh, lay on the floor, his swollen face badly bruised and bleeding. He said he lost his father in the strike.

“What did we do? There are no armed people in the school. The ones there are children, playing. We play together… Why did they bomb us?” he said in the video obtained by Reuters.

The U.S. issued a joint statement with other countries calling on Israel and Hamas to compromise to finalise a deal after eight months of war in the Gaza Strip.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said Hamas had not yet responded to the latest ceasefire proposal and was still studying it, adding that Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. mediation efforts are still ongoing.

Hamas sources said there was nothing new to respond to, adding the Israeli proposal was old and the group rejected it because it did not speak of an end to the war or a complete pull out from Gaza.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office, rejected Israel’s assertion that the U.N. school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, had hidden a Hamas command post.

“The occupation uses … false fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people,” Thawabta told Reuters.

Israel’s military said its fighter jets had carried out a “precise strike”, and circulated satellite photos highlighting two parts of a building where it said the fighters were based.

Late on Thursday, Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on the house of the mayor of Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip killed the mayor, Eyad Al-Mghari, and some members of his family.

In another sensitive development, the Israeli military reported a rare attack near the Israel-Gaza border, saying a squad of Palestinian fighters killed a soldier.