Just before 5pm on September 14th 2024, the Shuhada Al-Zeitoun School, sheltering displaced people in the vicinity of Al-Shafi’i Mosque, southeast of Gaza City, was struck by a declared Israeli airstrike which resulted in the killing of up to five people and the injury of six others.

Israeli forces said that the strike was targeting a “command and control complex” operated by Hamas under the school.

Initial statements by the Civil Defense Authority led sources such as @refugeesps and @SafaPs to report on Twitter/X that at least one or two people were killed at the displacement shelter in the Shuhada Al-Zeitoun School. After medical sources confirmed that the toll had risen to five deceased and six injured, news outlets such as Wattan News and Al Balad News Network published updated incident reports. Facebook user Maryam Ahmed specified that some of the injuries were “serious” but the extent of the injuries was not known. No sources provided identification for any of the victims.

Al Jazeera Egypt reported that children were among those killed. This was confirmed by Maryam Ahmed on Facebook who stated that a woman was among the deceased as well: “5 martyrs, including two children and a woman,…. They were martyred before they put on their new shoes.” A picture shared by Masar News emphasised the danger to children: a man is seen carrying a dust-covered, deceased toddler away from the area of the strike.

An additional source, @WatNe, posted on Facebook that the incident severely injured a pregnant woman causing her to lose her unborn child: “In Gaza, a foetus is born a martyr. A Palestinian woman was pregnant with her child and was displaced after the [Israelis] bombed her house with her husband and daughters to the Shuhada Al-Zeitoun School in Gaza, which was recently subjected to a sudden missile attack. The [Israelis] killed her joy at seeing her child, after the doctors told her that he had been martyred.”

The Israeli Defense Forces, posting on Telegram, acknowledged their involvement, claiming the school operated as a “command and control complex [that] was used by Hamas terrorists”. They wrote: “Fighter jets of the Air Force attacked a short time ago, in a targeted manner and under the intelligence guidance of the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Southern Command, terrorists who were operating in a command and control complex in the area that was previously used as the “Shahda’ Elzayton” school in Gaza City”.