At least 80 killed by Israeli strike on a school where hundreds were sheltering, health officials say

( NBC )

An airstrike by the Israel Defense Forces on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 80 people and injured dozens more on Saturday morning, according to Palestinian health officials, in one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war as mediators discussed ongoing efforts to de-escalate soaring tensions in the region.

The strikes hit the Tabeen school in Gaza City, including the mosque inside it, during dawn prayers.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was targeting a Hamas command center embedded in the school, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,” including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information.

Hamas denied that there was a command center in the school and in a statement, called the strike a “heinous massacre.”

NBC News is unable to independently verify whether there was a command center at the school.

Mohammed Al-Mogher, of Gaza’s Civil Defense, told NBC News that missiles tore through the school, where he estimated that some 4,200 displaced people were sheltering, before fire spread across the building.

Al-Mogher, who heads the agency’s documentation department, said the process of identifying the bodies was “extremely complex.”

“Most of them have not been identified due to the disappearance of their features and the melting of the bodies, as most of them were molten remains,” he said, adding that there were more than 60 bodies missing, and that most of the injured were in critical condition, with complete burns and amputated limbs.

Some have died on the operating tables, “due to a lack of medical equipment,” Al-Mogher said.

The civil defense, he added, continued to suffer from severe shortages, “and are working with simple manual equipment, which has not enabled the teams to perform their duties effectively and save lives.”

Mahmoud Saber Basal, an official spokesperson for the civil defense, said on Telegram that “There are still large quantities of body parts and torn bodies inside the Arab National Hospital, whose owners have not been identified, and families are facing difficulty in identifying their children.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, a witness identified as Abu Anas described the scene at the school: “There were people praying. There were people washing, and there were people upstairs sleeping including children, women and old people.”

The projectile struck them “without warning,” Abu Anas said. “We recovered them as body parts.”

According to the United Nations, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza have been directly hit or damaged since the current conflict began on October 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, resulting in the death of about 1,200 people, and another 240 were kidnapped. In Gaza, more than 39,000 have been killed in the war, 90,000 injured, and the overwhelming majority of the population has been displaced.

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including senior commanders, were operating from the compound struck at the school, citing Israeli intelligence, adding that the building acted as an “active military” facility.

Hamas said the strike was “a dangerous escalation,” and called on the international community to “take urgent action to stop these massacres.”

Khalil Al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that he believed Israel was “beyond negotiation or dialogue, beyond decisions.”

The latest strike came during renewed efforts to de-escalate soaring tensions in the region following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have continued to push for Israel and Hamas to achieve a cease-fire agreement. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to discuss de-escalating tensions.

Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken reiterated the urgent need to reach a cease-fire in Gaza that would secure the release of the hostages, allow a surge of humanitarian assistance, and create the conditions for broader regional stability. (115 hostages remain in Gaza, about 40 of whom are believed to have died.)

On Saturday, Iran’s mission to the United Nations underlined the importance of a cease-fire in Gaza, saying that its retaliation for Haniyeh’s assassination “will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”

It added that it will also recognize any cease-fire agreement accepted by Hamas.

A spokesperson for Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ambassador Sufyan Al-Qudah, said the timing of the attack on the Tabeen school — as mediators seek to resume talks over a cease-fire deal — was an indication of the Israeli government’s efforts to “obstruct and thwart” negotiations.

And in a sign of the White House’s rising frustration with Israel, national security spokesperson John Kirby publicly rebuked comments made by far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called the cease-fire negotiations with Hamas a “dangerous trap.”

Kirby called the comments “ridiculous” and “dead wrong,” and accused Smotrich of “misleading the Israeli public” by suggesting that a hostage deal was a surrender to Hamas.

“Don’t allow extremists to blow things off course, including extremists in Israel taking these ridiculous charges against the deal,” he said, adding that the onus was on both Israel and Hamas to agree to a deal.

The U.S. State Department said Washington will provide Israel with $3.5 billion to spend on U.S. weapons and military equipment, first reported by CNN on Friday. The amount comes from a $14 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel that was passed by Congress in April.

In a statement posted on X, the Palestinian Mission to the UN said that the Palestinian Presidency held the U.S responsible for the strike on Tabeen school, citing the release of military aid to Israel.

“The U.S. must end the blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly,” it said.