GAZA CITY, Palestine

At least 17 people were killed and 52 others injured in a new Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced civilians in the central Gaza Strip, local authorities said on Thursday.

The attack targeted the school in the refugee camp of Nuseirat in central Gaza, the government media office said in a statement.

"The (Israeli) occupation army was well aware that the Nuseirat Martyrs School houses thousands of displaced people, mostly women and children,” it added in a statement.

According to the media office, at least 196 schools and shelters have been targeted by Israeli attacks since the start of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza last year.

"This massacre comes in parallel with the Israeli occupation plan to bring down the health sector in Gaza and to destroy the hospitals," it added.

The media office appealed to the UN and international agencies to intervene to put an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, amid its ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Under the rules of war, targeting such civilian facilities can constitute a war crime.

The Israeli army has continued a devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack last year, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Nearly 42,800 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 100,400 others injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has displaced almost the territory’s entire population amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara