‘Beyond horrific’: Several children killed in Israeli attack on Gaza school

‘Panic, fear, and terror that swept through the school overwhelming’ says survivor of strike in Jabalia an-Nazla.

At least eight people were killed, including children, in an Israeli bombardment of a school sheltering displaced people in northern Gaza, medical sources have told media.

Several others were also wounded in the attack on the Halimah al-Saadiyah School in Jabalia an-Nazla. Survivors on Friday relayed a harrowing scene of an inferno.

“I saw the whole area filled with dust – that’s when I realised the strike had hit this place,” Abu Haitham Khalla told media, standing among the rubble.

“The panic, fear, and terror that swept through the school was overwhelming. There were about 1,000 displaced people sheltering here – tents and classrooms all being used as refuge,” he said.

Another witness, Ahmed Khalla, said he found dead victims lying on the floor of a classroom. “Children torn apart, charred. Women who had done absolutely nothing. The scenes were beyond horrific. I saw a little girl without a head – literally, without a head.”

Israeli missiles struck the Halimah al-Saadiyah School late at night as people slept.

Reporting from the scene, media’s Ibrahim al-Khalili painted a grim picture of the destruction: “The smell of the blood is everywhere. The attack came before midnight as people slept, killing them in the very place they once thought was safe.”

He added the school had been sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians who fled their homes in eastern parts of the Strip following Israeli forced displacement threats.

Separately, media has received reports that at least 10 Palestinians were killed and 16 wounded near the controversial GHF-run aid centre – the only functioning distribution point – in Rafah.

They were transferred to the nearby Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli snipers, said media’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“We have heard from locals that a great deal of panic erupted at the site of the aid centre during the attack,” said Abu Azzoum.

He added that security contractors, alongside Israeli forces, later opened fire to disperse desperate crowds seeking food.

“The climbing death toll reflects a blatant Israeli strategy to cause more harm to Palestinians who are trying to get food supplies,” Azzoum said. “People keep taking the risk just to feed their families, despite the fact that aid seekers have been shot at around these centres.”

‘Smell of blood is everywhere’

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Friday that it has recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by GHF and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN.

“Up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.