Israeli air strike hits UN school in Gaza

• Jason Burke and agencies
• theguardian.com, Sunday 3 August 2014 04.46 EDT

A girl points out a classroom damaged during an earlier missile attack on a UN-run school in Gaza. Photograph: Amador Guallar/NurPhoto/Rex

Ten people killed and dozens wounded in new missile attack on UN-run school in Rafah, according to witnesses

An Israeli air strike has killed at least 10 people and wounded about 30 others in a UN-run school in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said, as dozens died in renewed Israeli shelling of the enclave.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of the attack, the second to hit a UN school in less than a week.

A missile launched by an aircraft struck the entrance to the school in Rafah, the witnesses and medics said.

Witnesses said there was an explosion at about 10.30am just outside the gates of the Rafah Preparatory A Boys school where a group of children and some adults were buying sweets and biscuits from hawkers.

Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, said 10 people were killed and 30 wounded.

Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said: "It is believed that there was an air strike that hit outside the gate of an UNRWA school, a designated shelter for at least 3,000 displaced residents."

"There were multiple dead and injuries inside and outside the school, including an UNRWA staffer," he said.

There have been a considerable number of air strikes in the area overnight and on Sunday morning. Witnesses said there was a deep hole in the ground about eight metres from the school gates that was new, and blood on the floor was being cleaned up.

More than 2,000 people were thought to be seeking refuge in the school, many of them from the east of Rafah where there has been very heavy bombing since Friday, with at least 100 people thought to have been killed in the last few days.

"I’ve been speaking to my colleague Jason Burke who has been at the hospital in Rafah where victims of an air strike this morning are receiving treatment. Jason says:

I’ve been at the larger of two medical facilities in Rafah which are still open. One of the biggest was shut after sustained shelling in Friday.I saw the bodies of seven individuals, victims of an air strike on a UN-run school in Rafah this morning. It is difficult to judge the ages, and we do not yet have that information, but at least three were children or young teenagers. The dead include young boys who were selling sweets and biscuits. I understand that one of the school’s caretakers was also killed, although that is not confirmed.The death from this morning’s air strike is thought to be 10, or even 12 people, with about 20-30 injured. Witnesses described a normal scene at the school gates before a missile struck at 10.30.Here at the hospital there are beds outside in the parking area to give extra capacity. There are no, or very restricted, morgue facilities currently in Rafah. I saw a young boys corpse being taken out of the hospital in a shroud by his family. They will now bury him immediately as is the custom, but it is also necessary because there is no means of refrigerating the body. In the hospital there are a number of corpses on the floor in an unrefrigerated room.Victims with shrapnel wounds, many of them young boys and teens, can be seen in the corridors. Many of them are internally displaced, who sought shelter in the UN school after they had to escape their homes."