TEL AVIV, Israel, and GAZA STRIP — A rocket hit a sports complex filled with children playing soccer in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights region Saturday afternoon, on the same day that an Israeli strike in Gaza devastated a school building and killed dozens of people.
The airstrike in central Gaza was the latest to shatter a school used to shelter displaced Palestinian residents Saturday morning, killing 30 and wounding more than 100. The Gazan Health Ministry said many of the dead were children.
The school was located in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians have fled following evacuation orders the Israeli military has issued for regions farther south in Gaza.
TEL AVIV, Israel, and GAZA STRIP — A rocket hit a sports complex filled with children playing soccer in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights region Saturday afternoon, on the same day that an Israeli strike in Gaza devastated a school building and killed dozens of people.
The airstrike in central Gaza was the latest to shatter a school used to shelter displaced Palestinian residents Saturday morning, killing 30 and wounding more than 100. The Gazan Health Ministry said many of the dead were children.
The school was located in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians have fled following evacuation orders the Israeli military has issued for regions farther south in Gaza
lood was everywhere in the minutes that followed the strike, with pieces of flesh visible on the stairs and handicapped residents trying to flee, according to NPR reporter Anas Baba, who witnessed the immediate aftermath.
Wounded children were carried away afterward on donkey carts, video captured by Baba showed, with bodies borne aloft by makeshift stretchers built from pieces of debris. In nearby hospitals, Baba found hallways lined with bodies, several of them clearly very young children.
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a school destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
It’s the latest strike on a Gaza school turned shelter
The crowded school complex had around 4,000 people sheltering there, and according to Gazan health authorities part of the targeted site was also being used as a field hospital. No warning of the strike was provided in advance to those inside.
The Israeli military said its intelligence indicated that Hamas had been using the school compound as a hiding place for assaults on Israeli units. Numerous steps had been taken, the Israeli military said, to “mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Palestinians search for bodies in the rubble of a school destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The Israeli military has issued similar statements in recent weeks following several strikes on schools used to house the displaced in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier Saturday, Israel had issued fresh evacuation orders in southern Gaza, including neighborhoods in Khan Younis and Rafah, as the Israeli military said it was preparing to respond to rocket fire into Israel perpetrated by Hamas.
The United Nations currently estimates more than 80% of Gaza’s residents — more than 2 million people — are under similar evacuation orders across the territory.