A Gaza health ministry spokesman said two Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp killed more than 80 people on Saturday.
UN officials said the school had sheltered thousands of displaced Palestinians and Martin Griffiths condemned the “tragic news of the children, women and men killed.”
Civilians cannot and should not have to bear this any longer. Humanity needs to prevail.
“At least 50 people” were killed in a dawn strike on the UN-run Al-Fakhura school in the camp, a ministry spokesman told AFP news agency.
Social media videos confirmed by AFP showed bodies covered in blood and dust on the floor of one of the buildings, where mattresses had been pushed under school desks.
Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, is the largest refugee camp in the Palestinian territory, where some 1.6 million people have been displaced by more than six weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Earlier this month, the health ministry said an Israeli strike on the same school killed 15 people.
A separate strike on another building in Jabalia camp on Saturday killed 32 people from the same family, 19 of them children.
The Hamas government said in early November that three days of Israeli bombardment of Jabalia had killed more than 200 people and wounded hundreds more.
Israel said in a statement that its forces were expanding operations in the Gaza Strip, including in parts of Jabalia, to “destroy terrorists and strike Hamas infrastructure.”
Israel stated it would destroy Hamas in response to the 7 October attacks, which Israeli authorities believe killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostages.
