22 people killed in Israeli attack on a school in the Gaza Strip that houses displaced Palestinians

According to the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry, at least 22 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a school housing displaced people.

The Palestinian Civil Defense Authority in the Gaza Strip confirmed that Israel attacked the Zeitoun School in eastern Gaza City on Saturday.

Among those killed were 13 children, six women and a three-month-old baby, the government media office said in a statement. Israel had committed a “horrific massacre.”

At least 30 people were injured, the ministry said, including several who suffered severe burns. Two people are still missing.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense, said that thousands of displaced people had sought shelter in the school.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the air force had “carried out a targeted attack on terrorists operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City.”

The target was said to be located “inside” the Al-Falah School, which is adjacent to the Zeitoun School buildings.

The Israeli armed forces repeatedly accuse the group of using civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies this.

This is the latest in a series of Israeli raids on school buildings housing displaced people in the Gaza Strip, which has sheltered tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders.

An attack on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 sparked an international outcry after the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said six of its staff were among the 18 reported deaths.

According to the media office, Israel has so far bombed 181 refugee and emergency shelters.

William Deere, director of UNRWA's Washington office, told Al Jazeera earlier this month that Israeli forces had attacked a total of 190 UN facilities during the war, “many of them more than once.” And this despite the fact that the agency passes on its GPS coordinates to the Israeli military.

On August 1, at least 15 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the Dalal al-Mughrabi school in Gaza City, and on August 3, another 16 people were killed in a bomb attack on the Hamama school, also in Gaza City.

On August 4, at least 30 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Nassr and Hassan Salama schools west of Gaza City, and on August 8, at least 17 people were killed in attacks on the Abdul Fattah Hamouda and az-Zahra schools, also in Gaza City.

And on August 10, more than 100 people were killed and 150 others injured after Israeli forces bombed the Al-Tabin school east of Gaza City.

According to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry, at least 41,391 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza since last October, including 119 deaths in the last 72 hours.

On Saturday, it was reported that 95,760 people had been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 last year.