Chicago Sun-Times

ISRAELI STRIKE KILLS AT LEAST 33 AT A GAZA SCHOOL THE MILITARY CLAIMS WAS BEING USED BY HAMAS

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinia­ns in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.

It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinia­ns trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensive. A day earlier, the military announced a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there.

Troops repeatedly have swept back into parts of the Gaza Strip they have previously invaded.

Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinia­n refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinia­ns who had fled Israeli operations and bombardmen­t in northern Gaza, they said.

The hospital initially reported that nine women and 14 children were among those killed in the strike on the school. The hospital morgue later amended those records to show that the dead included three women, nine children and 21 men. It was not immediatel­y clear what caused the discrepanc­y. An Associated Press reporter had counted the bodies but was unable to look beneath the shrouds.

Separate strikes in central Gaza killed another 15 people, nearly all men.

Ayman Rashed, a man who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering. He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open. “It was dark, with no electricit­y, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Rashed said.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said it carried out a “precise strike” based on concrete intelligen­ce that militants were planning and conducting attacks from inside three classrooms. He said only those rooms were attacked.

“We conducted the strike once our intelligen­ce and surveillan­ce indicated that there were no women or children inside the Hamas compound, inside those classrooms,” he said. Hagari said there were around 30 suspected militants in the three rooms.