81 Killed in 24 Hours as Israel Continues Targeting UN School Shelters in Gaza

Israeli attacks have killed 81 Palestinians over roughly the last 24 hours, including an attack on a United Nations-run school shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to data released by the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday.

The Nuseirat strike, which killed 23 Palestinians on Tuesday, was at least the eighth Israeli attack on a school shelter in the last ten days. Six of the schools had been run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" Umm Mohammed al-Hasanat, a woman who was sheltering at the Nuseirat school, askedAl Jazeera.

"We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children," she said.

The Nuseirat attack was one of many in the last two days across the Gaza Strip.

A strike near Cairo School in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday killed at least nine, including three children. An overnight strike on a house in Al-Zawyda in central Gaza killed eight, while an attack on a house Wednesday in the Khan Younis area killed five. An Israeli bombing also killed two in the al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah on Wednesday. Israeli tanks also advanced into northern Rafah, Reutersreported.

The latest string of attacks included another on Tuesday in which Israeli forces killed about 17 in a strike on a "safe" zone in al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where refugees have gathered.

Even before Tuesday, Gazans were facing one of the deadliest weeks since the war began. Israel bombarded the al-Mawasi camp on Saturday, killing more than 90 Palestinians. Israeli forces also killed at least 17 people on Sunday in an attack on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in Nuseirat, which was housing thousands of displaced people; most of the dead were women and children, according toAl Jazeera.

UNRWA announced last week that Israeli forces have targeted two-thirds of the schools it administers in Gaza and attacked its facilities 453 times overall since the start of the war. Nearly 200 UNRWA staff members have been killed, the U.N. agency said.

The agency reiterated its call for a stop to Israeli targeting of its facilities in a social media message on Tuesday: "Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for U.N. premises and humanitarian law must stop."

News of the atrocities in Gaza came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday issued a 236-page report on the atrocities of October 7, in which Hamas-led armed groups killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250. The report's authors found that the groups had committed "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes" in their attack in southern Israel.

"Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage," Ida Sawyer, HRW's crisis and conflict director, said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The October 7 atrocities should spur a global call to action for an end to all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine."