15 Gazans die in Israeli attack on UNRWA school

More than 15 Palestinian civilians were killed on Thursday when the Israeli army shelled a school run by the U.N.’s Palestinian refugees agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian Health Ministry official has said.

“More than 15 people were killed and nearly 100 others, mostly women and children, were injured when Israel shelled the Beit Hanoun school,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qodra told Anadolu Agency.

“Body parts of children and women were scattered about inside the school,” he said.

Al-Qodra said scores of Palestinian families displaced by fierce Israeli bombardments across the Gaza Strip – which continued unabated on Thursday – had taken refugee inside the ill-fated school.

Israeli officials have yet to comment on the incident.

Palestinian resistance faction Hamas, for its part, described the Israeli attack as a “massacre.”

“Israel has committed a grisly war crime,” the group said in a statement, going on to vow that the Israeli attacks would not go unpunished.

Since July 7, Israel has pummeled the Gaza Strip – from air, sea and land – with the ostensible aim of halting Palestinian rocket fire.

One week ago, Israel stepped up its devastating offensive to include ground operations, sending thousands of troops into the embattled coastal enclave.

At least 745 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and more than 4500 injured in unrelenting Israeli attacks.

Thirty-two Israelis – 30 soldiers and two civilians – have also been confirmed killed by Palestinian resistance fighters since hostilities began on July 7.

Israel’s operation “Protective Edge” is the self-proclaimed Jewish state’s third major offensive against the densely-populated Gaza Strip – home to some 1.8 million Palestinians – within the last six years.

In 2008/9, over 1500 Palestinians were killed – the vast majority of them civilians – during Israel’s three-week-long “Operation Cast Lead.”