Gaza/Tel Aviv, 27 July 2024 (dpa/MIA) - At least 30 Palestinians were killed and another 100 injured in an Israeli airstrike on a school building in the central Gaza Strip, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Saturday.

The building is said to have housed an improvized field hospital, the Hamas-controlled ministry reported. The information could not be independently verified.

The Israeli military said that it had carried out an airstrike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah to destroy a Hamas command centre located there.

Fighters from the Palestinian organization Hamas used the building to coordinate attacks on Israeli troops and hide weapons, it said.

Hamas systematically uses civilian objects for its own purposes and uses civilians as shields, it said. This information could not be independently verified either.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people by Hamas militants and other groups in Israel on October 7 last year.

Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a major ground offensive, with Hamas authorities saying that about 39,000 people - mostly civilians - have been killed since the conflict broke out.

MIA file photo