Eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a training college near Gaza City being used to distribute aid, Palestinian witnesses said, as Israeli tanks pushed further into the southern city of Rafah.
The strike hit part of a vocational college run by the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that is now providing aid to displaced families, the witnesses said.
“Some people were coming to receive coupons and others had been displaced from their houses and they were sheltering here. Some were filling up water, others were receiving coupons, and suddenly we heard something falling. We ran away, those who were carrying water let it spill,” said Mohammed Tafesh, one of the witnesses.
“This is another example of Hamas’ systematic exploitation of civilian infrastructure and the civilian population as a human shield for its terrorist activities,” it added.
Hamas denies Israeli accusations that it uses civilians as human shields or civilian facilities for military purposes.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, said the agency was looking into details of the reported attack before providing more information.
“Since the beginning of the war, we have recorded that nearly 190 of our buildings have been hit. This is the vast majority of our buildings in Gaza,” she said. A total of 193 UNRWA team members have been killed in the conflict, she added.
Just after midnight, an Israeli air strike hit a clinic in Gaza City, killing the director of ambulance and emergency services at the territory’s health ministry, Hani Al-Jaafarwi, and another medical staffer, Hamas media said. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
