Israeli strike on Gaza school shelter kills at least 12, medics say

# Israeli strike on Gaza school shelter kills at least 12, medics say

At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several others wounded when Israeli forces bombed a school used as a shelter for displaced people in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence agency and medics. The strike came as the Israeli military intensified operations in northern Gaza and ordered further evacuations in the area.

The school hit was the Shati Elementary Boys School, which is linked to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Medics said at least 30 people were injured in the bombing. The account given by Gaza officials and medics is that the building was being used as a shelter, which makes the strike part of a pattern in which school buildings and UN-run facilities have become refuges for civilians fleeing repeated bombardment.

The broader context in the reporting is one of sustained pressure on northern Gaza. Al Jazeera said Israeli raids across Gaza killed 27 Palestinians since dawn on the same day, including 19 in the north, where an Israeli military siege had been in place for more than a month. Reporting from central Gaza described dense neighbourhoods and shelters being targeted again and again as people tried to move between supposed safe areas and evacuation routes.

The military also issued another forced evacuation order for parts of northern Gaza, saying the designated area was a dangerous combat zone and telling residents to move south immediately. That order was broadcast through text messages, social media posts and drone announcements. Tanks advanced into Beit Lahiya at the same time, deepening the sense that the north was being compressed under combat and displacement at once.

The UN dimension is significant because the school was linked to UNRWA, and Israel had already notified the UN that it was cutting ties with the agency. The reporting says the agency remains central to civilian survival in Gaza even as its operating environment narrows. The same piece notes that prior to the war, Gaza saw an average of 500 aid trucks daily, while UN agencies have repeatedly said current aid flows are far too low for the need.

The excerpt also places the school strike within the larger war toll. It cites an Al Jazeera tally saying the war in Gaza had killed at least 43,469 Palestinians and wounded 102,561 others, most of them women and children. The report also recalls the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed at least 1,139 people according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics.

For civilians in the north, the combination of bombardment, evacuation orders and shrinking aid access has created a near-constant cycle of movement and return. Residents quoted in the report said they were being bombed in houses and on roads even after displacement orders, reinforcing the reality that nowhere in northern Gaza is truly being treated as safe.

The latest strike therefore matters not only because of the death toll, but because of where it hit: a school shelter in a camp built to hold displaced families, in a district already under siege, during an operation in which civilians are being told to move while roads and shelters are still under fire.