US ammunition was used in Israel’s attack on UN school that killed dozens of people, a CNN analysis shows

Jerusalem
CNN
—

Dozens of people were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza, authorities said. A CNN analysis said a US-made weapon was used in the attack.

The school, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), was housing displaced people from the Nuseirat refugee camp at the time of the incident, the Gaza government media office said.

At least 45 people were killed in the attack, a spokesman for Gaza’s Health Ministry told CNN. Authorities at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital said the death toll could rise as victims were still being admitted to the hospital on Thursday morning.

The Israeli military confirmed that it had carried out the airstrike. The attack targeted a Hamas compound inside the school. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner later told reporters that the military was “not aware of any civilian casualties.”

Lerner said the attack targeted “20 to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad” fighters and that they were “using the facilities to plan and carry out attacks” on Israeli forces. Among those killed were fighters who were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Lerner said. CNN cannot independently verify any of these claims.

A CNN analysis of video from the scene and a review by an explosives expert found that American-made munitions were used in the attack on the school. CNN identified fragments of at least two American-made GBU-39 bombs in a video filmed at the scene by a CNN journalist.

This is the second time in two weeks that CNN has documented the use of US-made munitions in deadly Israeli attacks on displaced Palestinians. The first attack was on May 26 in a deadly Israeli attack on a refugee camp in Rafah.

Thursday’s attack came after Israeli forces stepped up ground and air strikes in central Gaza on Tuesday amid a deepening humanitarian crisis there. Palestinians in central Gaza said the intensity and frequency of Israeli attacks over the past week made them feel like the start of war.

According to a journalist on the ground working with CNN, the school was hit by at least three rockets that ripped through the three-story building. According to the journalist, the facility was believed to be housing thousands of displaced people who had sought shelter in the school, its courtyard and the surrounding area. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the school was housing about 6,000 displaced people.

“We were sleeping here and suddenly we saw rockets falling. I fell to the floor with my child in my arms, we were both injured, my relative became a martyr in this room,” said journalist J.but Abu Daher told CNN on Thursday.

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “kills civilians, he doesn’t kill militants, it’s innocent people sleeping in a UNRWA facility… what did the children and the elderly do? What did they do to him? He’s looking for Hamas people? Go and look for them, why are you killing us in schools?”

Gaza authorities said dead and injured people continued to be brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, which is operating at three times its clinical capacity. This is “a sign of a real catastrophe that will lead to a further increase in the number of martyrs,” the Gaza Strip media office said.

UNRWA said its school was hit by the attacks “possibly multiple times” overnight. A UNRWA spokesman told CNN it could not confirm Israeli reports that Hamas members had used the school as a compound.

“We remind all parties to the conflict that schools and other UN facilities must never be used for military or combat purposes,” the spokesman said. “UN facilities must be protected at all times.”

Lazzarini said in a post on X that “claims that armed groups may have been in the bunker are shocking” but that this could not be verified. “Attacking, attacking or using UN buildings for military purposes is a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law,” he added.

US-made munitions were also used in the deadly Israeli attack on a refugee camp in Rafah late last month, according to a video analysis by CNN and an investigation by explosives experts.

Following the attack, US President Joe Biden rejected calls to change his policy toward Israel, saying the deadly attack on Rafah had not crossed a red line that would force a change in American support. He had previously said in a CNN interview that he would not allow the use of certain US weapons in a major offensive in Rafah.

In April, CNN reported that the Biden administration had approved the transfer of more than 1,000 small bombs to Israel, according to three people familiar with the matter.

An Israeli attack hit the same camp last month, killing dozens of people, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital said at the time. One woman, Um Mohammad Taha, told CNN at the time that five houses had collapsed, including her sister’s, and that many were buried under the rubble, including children.

Another Israeli attack on the Nuseirat camp in April injured several journalists, including one working for CNN.

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which supports Al-Aqsa Hospital, said on Wednesday that it had recorded more than 70 dead and more than 300 injured within just 48 hours amid an escalation of bombings and ground fighting.

Karin Huster, an MSF nurse, said in the organization’s statement: “We have seen hospitals being bombed. We have seen refugee camps being bombed. We have seen humanitarian warehouses being bombed. The situation is apocalyptic.”

“The smell of blood when I walked into the emergency room was just overwhelming. People were lying on the floor. People were lying outside,” Huster added. “It’s just an emotionally overwhelming situation.”

Israel’s renewed focus on bombing central Gaza underscores the elusiveness of its stated goal of destroying Hamas. The brunt of Israel’s military campaign had shifted south toward Rafah in recent months, but rocket fire and ground warfare have now again targeted camps further north, such as Nuseirat, and areas like Bureij, both south of Gaza City.

“Every place we went after they said it was safe was hit – I want the war to stop,” Mohammad Farajallah, a child who said his two brothers were killed in Thursday’s attack, told CNN as he rummaged through the rubble of the school.

The latest attack also occurred as American, Egyptian and Qatari politicians met in Doha to resume negotiations on a new ceasefire and the release of the hostages.

The meetings follow a three-phase proposal by US President Joe Biden, described as an Israeli plan, that would combine the release of hostages with a “complete and comprehensive ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip would not be halted despite the resumption of talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

“We are in a process of continuous engagement to wear down the enemy. Any negotiations with the terrorist organization Hamas will only be conducted under fire,” Gallant said in a recorded video statement.