Another Israeli attack hits a UN school in Gaza that was sheltering families

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There has been another Israeli attack on a U.N. school in Gaza sheltering displaced families. Israel says the strikes have targeted Hamas militants and says the fighters have recently moved some of their operations from tunnels to schools. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 23 people, many of them women and children, were killed and more than 70 wounded. NPR's Jane Arraf in Beirut and producer Anas Baba in Gaza have this report, and a warning - it includes graphic descriptions of violence.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY RUNNING)

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: NPR's Anas Baba arrived at al-Razi School in Nuseirat half an hour after the airstrike. The rooms were still smoldering.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANKING)

ARRAF: Bulldozers worked to clear the crumbled concrete and twisted metal. Families looked through the rubble for anything they could salvage - clothes, a bottle of cooking oil. Survivors said the dead included a barber and the young boy whose hair he was cutting. He said a young girl was decapitated by shrapnel as she walked to the bathroom.

NOUR BASSAR: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: Fourteen-year-old Nour Bassar's best friend was killed. She says they were born only 10 days apart.

NOUR: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: "She was happy. She was laughing with us," she said. The girl said she closed her eyes when the attack happened. And when she opened them, all she could see was blood streaming from her friend. Abdul Basset Jamal was also in the school. He saw the bodies of six people he knew. He lists their family names.

ABDUL BASSET JAMAL: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: Families in Gaza have been displaced over and over in the nine months since the war began with the militant group Hamas storming the border with Israel. The U.S. has continued to supply bombs to Israel, even as it tells its ally that civilian deaths are still unacceptably high. Israel says it takes measures to mitigate civilian casualties. Gaza health authorities say almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, most of them women and children. About 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed on October 7, according to the Israeli government.

In the last two weeks, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma says, eight schools have been hit, including six of the organization's own.

JULIETTE TOUMA: The attacks on the schools and the hits have become, over the past 10 days, almost a daily occurrence in Gaza. Seventy percent of our schools hit - the vast majority of them - in fact, more than 90% were used as shelters for the internally displaced families.

ARRAF: Israel maintains that if Hamas fighters are operating there, schools are legitimate targets. Israel says militants were either in or near the schools it targeted Tuesday and in an earlier strike 11 days ago. Touma says, UNRWA has no way of knowing whether militants are present and has called unsuccessfully for independent investigations of the strikes.

BASSET JAMAL: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: At the al-Razi camp, Jamal says, there was no way families would have stayed in the school if Hamas fighters had been there. In the July 6 attack, Israel struck another UNRWA school in the same refugee camp, killing 22 people according to Gaza health officials.

UM YAMEN: (Non-English language spoken, crying).

ARRAF: In a classroom there, Anas met a group of women whose children had been killed.

ANAS BABA, BYLINE: This is the sound of a mother that mourns her (ph) 10-years-old child.

YAMEN: (Crying).

BABA: She already lost a daughter before, and now she lost another son.

ARRAF: It's hot and crowded in the former classroom. The woman, Um Yamen, is sitting on the concrete floor, inconsolable. Other women are waving pieces of plastic in front of her so she doesn't faint. Her 11-year-old daughter, Lamar, died in a previous airstrike, and on this day, it was her 8-year-old son, Zaid.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: Um Yamen's sister-in-law says Zaid was playing in the courtyard of the school when Israel bombed the building.

BABA: They're trying to give her some air, but she cannot even understand what's happened.

YAMEN: (Crying).

ARRAF: It's beyond understanding to flee from place to place for nine months, to try to keep your children safe and then to lose them in an instant, say the grieving parents. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Beirut, with NPR's Anas Baba in Gaza.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARTIN JACOBY'S "TOGETHER WE WILL LIVE FOREVER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.