Palestinians inspect a school, which was sheltering displaced people, after it was hit by an Israeli strike, amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas resistance movement, in Gaza City, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)

Gaza City, September 22 (RHC)-- The Israeli military has bombed 21 schools sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since August, leaving 267 Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured, rights group says. 

At least 22 Palestinians were killed early Saturday when Israeli fighter jets hit a school housing displaced civilians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, according to local authorities.

The Government Media Office said in a statement that those killed in the Israeli “horrific massacre” included 13 children, six women, and a three-month-old baby.  At least 30 people were wounded, the health ministry said, including several who suffered severe burns.  Two people remain missing.

According to the Euro-Med Human Rights, a Geneva-based rights group, the attack “is a new crime to be added to a series of potential war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.”

It called Israeli attacks on schools housing displaced people “a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, military necessity, and proportionality.”

The organization criticized Israeli attempts to justify its attacks on schools and shelters in Gaza.  The rights group also dismissed the Israeli army's allegations that it targeted gunmen during its attacks on schools, saying: “No evidence was given to prove the validity of the Israeli claims.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan says more than 990 medics and health workers have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip ever since the Tel Aviv regime began its aerial and ground offensives across the coastal sliver in early October last year. 

In a statement on Saturday evening, he denounced the deaths of five employees of the Health Ministry in Gaza following an Israeli airstrike on the ministry’s storage facilities in the Musbah area of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“Palestine has lost more than 990 health workers since the beginning of the occupation’s aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7, including doctors, specialists, nurses, support medical professionals, administrators and paramedics,” Abu Ramadan said.

He added that “Israeli occupation forces arrested more than 300 employees, while many hospitals were destroyed and put out of service.”

Abu Ramadan stated that Israeli attacks have caused “130 ambulances to stop working, in addition to hundreds of violations against the entire health system in the West Bank.”

“The deliberate targeting is added to the series of crimes and violence practiced by the occupation against health workers in various specialties, as well as treatment centers and ambulances,” he added.

The senior Palestinian health official also condemned Israel's continued targeting of humanitarian health workers, saying, “The occupation is flouting all international and humanitarian laws.”

He called on the international community and world humanitarian and health organizations to “increase pressure on Israeli authorities to stop the aggression immediately, open border crossings to allow the entry of various forms of health support, and also allow the exit of hundreds of patients and wounded who suffer from critical health conditions.”

Throughout its devastating war in Gaza, where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, Israel has systematically attacked civilian establishments, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, claiming that they are being used for military purposes.  However, the Zionist regime has never been able to prove any of its unfounded claims. 

Under the rules of war, targeting such civilian facilities can constitute a war cri