Israeli forces storm Gaza school sheltering displaced killing at least 15

At least 15 Palestinians have been killed after Israeli forces stormed a Gaza school sheltering displaced people, sources have told Al Jazeera, amid a wave of attacks across the besieged Palestinian territory killing dozens more, including two journalists overnight.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that several others were also injured in the Israeli attack on Khalil Oweida School in Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza on Sunday.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, quoted witnesses as saying many of those hurt during the storming of the school sustained “severe injuries”.

“They have nowhere to go because the Israeli military forces are encircling the area with tanks and armoured vehicles, and hammering the school with heavy artillery,” he said.

Among those killed were a family of four, including two children, after the classroom where they were sheltering took a “direct hit” from artillery fire.

“Many of the injured are in the courtyard of the school and inside the other classrooms. They can’t get any treatment because none of the hospitals in Beit Hanoon are operational,” he said, noting that the storming of the school happened “without prior warning”.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA also confirmed the 15 deaths.

WAFA reported that those who remained at the besieged school, many of them women and children, were being forced to leave the area and move towards a military checkpoint set up at Salah al-Din Street. Several of the men were reportedly detained.

The siege of the school is still under way.

In all, at least 46 Palestinians were killed across Gaza in the last 24 hours, the besieged territory’s Ministry of Health said, adding that five “massacres” were committed by Israeli forces during the same period.

Of total death toll, at least 14 were reported in the southern Gaza City, including in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where an Israeli raid hit a residential building in the Abu Iskandar area.

Our colleagues from Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that four of those deaths were from an Israeli raid on a house in al-Nafaq Street in the centre of Gaza City.

Three other people were killed in a separate strike on a house in Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA confirmed that an Israeli air raid hit a tent sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoon, killing several civilians and wounding many others.

Two others were reported killed following a separate Israeli attack on the area surrounding Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, WAFA added.

Four Palestinians were also killed in Shujayea, Khan Younis.

At least 135 other people were reported injured in the Israeli attacks on Sunday.

The deadly Israeli raids and bombings come just a day after Israeli forces killed several people after hitting a school in Gaza City, and just two days after a massacre in Nuseirat refugee camp.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud confirmed on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli air attack that targeted their home in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, late on Saturday.

The Egypt-based Al-Ahram reported that al-Qrinawi was affiliated with Sanad News Agency, a distinct entity from Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Unit. Al-Qrinawi was the second journalist killed on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, Al Mashhad Media said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.

George Eid, director of news at Al Mashhad, confirmed Balousha’s killing, saying it was a targeted attack.

Balousha was the Palestinian journalist who broke the story on the decomposing bodies of premature babies in the ICU, who were left to die by Israeli forces at al-Nasr Hospital last year.

The separate killings of al-Qrinawi and Balousha raise the death toll of Palestinian journalists to 196. The Committee to Protect Journalists has compiled records of at least 137 Palestinian journalists killed.

On Tuesday, two separate reports from media freedom organisations said Israel carried out a “massacre” of journalists in Gaza.

The Israeli government denied the accusations.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 44,976 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.

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