Israel strike on UN school that left 45 dead used US munitions spokesperson from Gaza’s Ministry of Health told CNN
Dozens of people were killed by an overnight Israeli airstrike on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza, authorities said, in an attack that CNN analysis found was conducted with a US-made weapon.
The school, run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), was housing displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp at the time of the incident, the Gaza government media office said.
At least 45 people were killed in the strike, a spokesperson from Gaza’s Ministry of Health told CNN. Authorities at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said casualties could rise as victims were still being brought to the hospital on Thursday morning.
The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the airstrike, which it said targeted a Hamas compound operating inside the school. Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner later told journalists the military was not “aware of any civilian casualties.”
It marks the second time in two weeks that CNN has been able to verify the use of US-manufactured munitions in deadly Israeli attacks on displaced Palestinians, the first being a deadly IDF strike on a displacement camp in Rafah on May 26.
Thursday’s attack came after the IDF ramped up ground and air assaults in the center of the strip on Tuesday amid a deepening humanitarian crisis there. Palestinians in central Gaza have reported that the intensity and frequency of Israeli strikes in the last week have felt like the beginning of the war.
US-made weapon used
Gaza authorities said the dead and injured continue to be brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which is operating at three times its clinical capacity, “signaling a real disaster that will lead to a greater increase in the number of martyrs,” the Gaza media office said.
Lazzarini said in a post on X that while “claims that armed groups may have been inside the shelter are shocking” they have been unable to verify it. “Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law,” he added.
Munitions made in the US were also used in the deadly Israeli strike on a displacement camp in Rafah late last month, a CNN analysis of video from the scene and a review by explosive weapons experts found.
After that attack, US President Joe Biden refused calls to alter his policy towards Israel, suggesting the deadly Rafah strike had not yet crossed a red line that would force changes in American support. He had previously said in a CNN interview that he wouldn’t allow certain US weapons to be used in a major offensive in Rafah.