DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 22, including women and children, the territory's Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military confirmed it struck the school in the Jabalia refugee camp, saying it was targeting Hamas militants inside who were planning attacks on Israeli troops. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed.
Footage from the al-Falouja School showed rescue workers rushing casualties out of the school compound amid widespread debris and crowds of people. One video showed men wrapping a mangled, severed torso in a plastic sheet and putting body parts into a cooler.
Gaza's Health Ministry didn't immediately say how many of the casualties were women and children.
Israeli forces have repeatedly struck schools, saying Hamas fighters use them as ''command centers'' to plan attacks. The military says it uses precision weapons to avoid civilian casualties.
The strikes have brought heavy death tolls. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are living packed in schools across Gaza after fleeing their homes in the face of Israeli bombardment and offensives. More than 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced in the nearly yearlong conflict, according to the United Nations.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, authorities buried in a mass grave the bodies of 88 Palestinians that Israel returned to the Gaza Strip a day earlier. A bulldozer dug a trench in one of the city cemeteries, and the bodies were laid inside in blue plastic bags before the bulldozer covered them over with dirt.
Gaza's Health Ministry denounced what it called the ''inhumane and immoral'' way Israel had treated the bodies, saying they were sent back piled in a truck with no information to identify them.
