# Dozens Killed After Israeli Strike Hits Gaza School Sheltering Displaced Families
On 2025-05-26, Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed at least 54 Palestinians, most of them in a school building sheltering displaced families, according to hospital directors who spoke to the BBC. The dead included children, and witnesses described fires spreading rapidly through classrooms being used as living quarters.
The strike hit Fahmi Al-Jargawi School in Gaza City, where hundreds of people from Beit Lahia had taken shelter amid intensified Israeli military pressure in northern Gaza. Local officials and rescue workers said at least 35 people were killed at the school itself. Gaza's Civil Defence reported that multiple bodies, including children, were recovered from the burning rooms, many badly burned.
The Israeli military said it had targeted what it described as a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre. It said the site was being used by militants to plan attacks on Israeli civilians and troops, and repeated its accusation that Hamas was using civilians as human shields. The BBC report noted that the military had not yet commented on a separate strike on a house in Jabalia that killed 19 more people, according to a hospital director.
Faris Afana, who manages the northern Gaza ambulance service, told the BBC that his crews found three classrooms on fire and could not reach many of the people inside because of the flames. His description underlined how schools in Gaza have increasingly become emergency shelters as the war has displaced large numbers of people from their homes.
The deaths came as fighting continued to intensify in the north of the enclave. The Israeli military said it had hit 200 targets across Gaza in 48 hours. At the same time, diplomatic efforts were still under way, with Hamas saying it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal that Israel had not yet accepted in the same form.
The school attack was one of several deadly incidents reported in Gaza around the same period. The BBC report also noted the killing of nine children from the home of a Palestinian doctor in a separate strike, as well as the deaths of two Red Cross workers in another attack. Together, those incidents reflected the high civilian toll of the war and the continuing vulnerability of people who had already fled repeated rounds of violence.
For families sheltering in schools, the strike was another warning that nowhere in Gaza appeared safe.
