GAZA CITY, Palestine

The director of the Government Media Office in Gaza on Saturday said that Israeli aircraft targeted the Al-Taba’een School in Gaza City, which is sheltering over 6,000 displaced people, with three massive bombs.

In a statement to Anadolu, Ismail Thawabteh said the Israeli warplanes dropped three bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds (over 900 kg) on the school.

The attack resulted in immediate fatalities of at least 100 people, with dozens more suffering severe injuries, including amputations.

Thawabteh added that this “massacre” coincides with the “complete destruction of the health system in northern Gaza,” leaving no hospitals in the Gaza province and northern areas capable of handling such a large number of casualties.

He highlighted severe shortages of medicines, beds, and medical supplies needed to treat the injured.

Thawabteh said that the Al-Taba'een School is the 175th shelter targeted by Israeli forces since the beginning of the devastating war, with 155 of those being schools directly attacked.

He held both the Israeli occupation and the US administration fully responsible for the “massacre” and called on the international community to “pressure Israel and the US to halt the ongoing massacres and genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.”

Earlier, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip said: “The Israeli strikes targeted the displaced people while performing Fajr (dawn) prayers, [which] led to a rapid rise in the number of casualties.”

Despite appeals on Thursday from mediators, including Egypt, the US, and Qatar, to stop hostilities, reach a cease-fire, and a hostage exchange agreement, Israel persists with its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 39,800 people since last October following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi