According to reports from the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 28 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50 injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a school in the central Gaza Strip sheltering displaced families. The attack on Rufaida al-Aslamia school in Deir al-Balah injured over 50 other people. The strike was confirmed to target a command center for Hamas, which runs its operations from within the school, but still the military said it sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Hamas and Gaza’s health ministry condemned the attack, referring to it as a “massacre” and part of the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which has taken more than 42,000 Palestinian lives since October 2023.
As was the case in most other schools in Gaza, this school had been transformed into a shelter for displaced families because of the conflict of such long duration. This attack, instead of highlighting the loss to the civilian lives that is caused by the war, focuses on the multifaceted and devastating losses to civilians who are hiding in schools and other civil infrastructure.
