Six aid workers were among 14 people killed by Israeli airstrikes on a school housing refugees in central Gaza, according to a United Nations agency. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine in the Near East (UNRWA) said the strikes in Nuseirat on Wednesday resulted in “the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident”. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier that it had targeted Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within the al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School. The claims could not be independently verified. 

“[The school] was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” the IDF said.

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”

Though the military said its strike was “precise”, doctors reported afterwards that the casualties included women and children. 

A total of at least 34 people were killed, including 19 women and children, when Israeli missiles hit homes across Gaza on Wednesday, hospital officials said. 

The UNRWA said one of the children killed at the school was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defence agency, which rescues wounded people and retrieves bodies after strikes.

Earlier, the IDF struck a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 11 people, including six brothers and sisters ranging in age from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties.

A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The home reportedly belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived.

‘School has been targeted five times’

Gaza’s schools are packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. 

At least 12,000 people have been sleeping at the al-Jaouni school. Witnesses told the Al Jazeera news agency that people were waiting for food there when IDF jets arrived overhead. 

The UNRWA said six staffers aiding the displaced, including the manager of the shelter, were killed. 

“Humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war,” the agency’s director, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote on X.

In a separate statement, the UNRWA said the school had been hit by Israeli strikes five times. 

“Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” a statement from the agency read. 

“Sincere condolences to their families and loved ones.”

It added: “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.”

More than 90 per cent of Gaza’s school buildings have been severely or partially damaged in strikes, and more than half the schools housing displaced people have been hit, according to a survey in July by the Education Cluster, a collection of aid groups led by UNICEF and Save the Children.

The IDF said it had intelligence that Hamas was operating out of the al-Jaouni school.

“This is further example of the Hamas terrorists organisation’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law,” it said. 

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, the territory’s Health Ministry said. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilians and militants.