'This is not life': Gazans reel from Israeli strike on school-turned-shelter

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41472542

> Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Young children wandered through the charred shell of what had been a school sheltering displaced Palestinians on Thursday, after a pre-dawn Israeli strike killed 15 people there according to the civil defence agency.

> Tattered clothes hung from the blackened exterior of the building in western Gaza City, as rubble still smouldered below in the morning light.

>Bloodstains dotted the ground strewn with the remnants of daily life. Clothing, metal chairs, tins of food and part of an electric fan lay amongst the wreckage, AFP footage showed.

>"This is not a life," said Umm Yassin Abu Awda, a Gaza City resident who stood amongst mourners at the city's Al-Shifa Hospital following the strike.

>"Either you strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people's conscience needs to finally wake up."

>Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it "struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City".

>"Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians," it added.

>Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence agency, told AFP that most of the 15 killed in Thursday's strike were women and children.

>He also reported a large number of injuries in the "Israeli air strike on the Mustafa Hafez School, which shelters displaced persons, in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood".

>They were among 69 people that the agency reported killed by Israeli forces on Thursday in the Palestinian territory, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.

>Nearly all of Gaza's population has been displaced at least once during the nearly 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living there.

>Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.

>Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence.

>At Mustafa Hafez School, a colourful mural on a wall next to the wreckage showed a smiling boy walking past a tree and a woman next to a Palestinian flag.

>A small group sat on chairs in what was once the playground of the school.

>Inside the building, a group of young boys surveyed the damage and climbed on upturned furniture while others sifted through the debris.

>Crowds of mourners gathered at Al-Shifa Hospital, where men and women wept over the bodies of the dead.

>"We have no life left. Let them just annihilate us so we can finally rest," said one woman who lost relatives in the strike and did not give her name.

>"There's nothing left for us. My two daughters are gone -- and now my niece, along with her six children and her husband, were burned to death," she said, her voice breaking with emotion.