80 killed in strikes on two UN refugee schools

AT least 80 people were killed in strikes on two UN schools being used as refugee shelters by families fleeing the war in Gaza, it was claimed last night.

Horrific videos online showed bodies on the blood-spattered floor of one of the schools in the Jabalia refugee district of Gaza City.

It came as more than 1,000 Palestinians were evacuated from alShifa hospital as Israeli soldiers continued an assault to take out a

Hamas command centre it suspects is being run from tunnels underneath.

Families waving white flags fled south as Israeli troops, tanks and bulldozers rolled into the compound. Last night the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was ‘looking into’ the school attacks.

In southern Gaza, Israel also bombed an apartment block early on Saturday, killing 26 people shortly after announcing plans to intensify operations in areas where its military had told civilians to flee for their safety.

Yesterday morning, bombs hit a multi-storey block in Hamad City, a middle-class housing development in Khan Younis, killing 26 people and injuring 23 more. A few miles north, six Palestinians were killed in an attack on a house in Deir Al-Balah town.

Violence also continued to surge across the occupied West Bank.

An Israeli airstrike at 2am yesterday killed five and wounded two other people at an office of the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party in Nablus.

At al-Shifa hospital, a column of medics, patients and refugees trudged out of the building where Israeli troops spent a fourth day searching for evidence of a Hamas command centre it claimed was buried below the wards.

Five doctors stayed behind, a skeleton staff to care for 120 patients too weak or ill to move.

Hamas authorities claimed Israel’s military ordered everyone to leave the hospital.

An Israeli Defence Forces spokesperson said they facilitated an evacuation requested by medical staff.