By Matthew Doran and Basel Hindeleh in Jerusalem, ABC News
Palestinians gather in the yard of the school after an Israeli strike at the Al-Taba'een school where displaced Palestinians took shelter in Gaza City on August 10, 2024. Photo: Abood Abusalama / Middle East Images via AFP
In the quiet of early Saturday morning in Gaza City, desperate Palestinians seeking refuge in a school complex awoke to a catastrophic blast.
An Israeli air strike hit the Al-Taba'een school in the Daraj neighbourhood in the east of the city, where local authorities said thousands displaced in the 10-month-long Gaza war were sheltering.
Photos and video from the site are confronting, with images of devastating destruction broadcast around the world.
But there is a dispute as to the severity of the strike, in what Palestinian officials are describing as one of the deadliest attacks of the war so far.
What do we know happened?
The fact an air strike occurred at all is not in dispute - Israel has confirmed it targeted the school complex, with a mosque nearby.
Three missiles tore through the building as people slept, washed and performed dawn prayers before sunrise on Saturday morning.
The exact number of people killed is unknown - local civil defence authorities are saying more than 90 people have been killed and dozens more injured as a result of the strike.
The ABC cannot independently verify these figures.
Witnesses to the attack and its aftermath have described, in graphic detail, the human toll of the strike - mangled bodies torn apart in the blast, many unidentifiable and incomplete.
The United Nations says it is the 21st strike on a school since July, and that 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed between 7 October and early July this year.
How is Israel trying to justify the attack?
Israel says it had intelligence that Islamic militants were hiding among civilians at the school, and that it was being used as a command centre for Hamas and other groups fighting Israeli forces.
In the hours after the strike, Israeli security services and the defense force said at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters had been identified as killed in the blast.
It said the part of the mosque that was struck was reserved for men.
The IDF also says Hamas were using the facility to produce and store weapons, and insists it was a targeted strike using "precise munitions" - arguing its use of smaller missiles, intelligence gathering and aerial surveillance of the school meant that the damage was limited.
In other words, Israel is arguing the scale of destruction seen and toll reported could not have been caused by its air strike.
In an attempt to prove that there was no severe damage, it released video of the mosque following the strike.
IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said there had been an initial review of the casualty figures.
"The numbers published by the Hamas-run Government Information Office in Gaza, do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike," he said.
"The IDF continues to examine and calls on the media to act with caution about information released by Hamas sources, as they have been proven to be sorely unreliable."
What is the Palestinian response?
Palestinian authorities are accusing Israel of deliberately targeting the safe haven, and argue the death toll reflects just how densely packed the school complex was.
And locals are pointing to the destruction on the ground inside the building - twisted metal, concrete walls blown apart, blood stained flooring and personal belongings strewn across the site.
Civil defence authorities said some people were burned while others had body parts blown off.
"The Israeli strikes targeted the displaced people while performing Fajr [dawn] prayers, led to a rapid increase in the number of casualties," Gaza's government media office said in a statement.
Hamas denied militants were sheltering at the school, and has described the attack as a major escalation in the war with Israel.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in the West Bank said the global community was not putting enough pressure on Israel, encouraging it to continue launching attacks on facilities such as schools.
First responders said many of the victims were women and children, despite Israeli assertions its intelligence said few, if any, were at the school at the time.
How has the world reacted?
Condemnation of the attack has been swift, although it is unlikely to the extent Palestinians would be hoping for - much of it taking the form of demands for restraint, as opposed to any tangible shifts in policy towards Israel and the war.
US Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about the strike while campaigning in Arizona.
"Yet again there are far too many civilians who have been killed," she said.
"I mean, Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas.
"But as I have said many, many times, they also have, I believe, an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties."
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong echoed those concerns in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Innocent Palestinians cannot continue to pay the price of defeating Hamas," she said.
"Australia condemns the deaths of civilians from Israel's strike on Al-Taba'een School.
"Israel must comply with international humanitarian law."
The UN's human rights office said Israel needed to exercise extreme caution around schools.
"While the co-location by armed groups of military objectives with civilians or the use of the presence of civilians with the objective of shielding a military objective from attack constitute violations of international humanitarian law, it does not negate Israel's obligation to comply strictly," it said.
Arab states as well as Turkey, France, Britain and the European Union have also hit out at Israel for the attack.
Egypt, which is one of the nations trying to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage deal, questioned Israel's political will to end the war in Gaza as a result of the strike.
What's next?
Israel is continuing its campaign in Gaza, striking what it says are Hamas military targets.
On Sunday, it expanded its evacuation orders in Khan Younis in the south of the strip, telling already displaced Palestinians to move into the shrinking humanitarian area.
The announcement was posted on X and in text and audio messages to residents' phones: "For your own safety, you must evacuate immediately to the newly created humanitarian zone. The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone."
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations, with most of the enclave reduced to rubble.
Designated humanitarian areas, including Al-Mawasi, have been bombed several times.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas left.
This is all while Israel exchanges cross-border strikes with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and prepares for a reprisal - from Iran and its proxies to the killing of top commanders - that has a region on edge.
- ABC
