September 2024 Al-Jawni School attack

On 11 September 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck the UN-run Al-Jawni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza with two airstrikes. The school was being used as a shelter for people displaced by the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, including large numbers of women and children. According to rescuers, at least 18 people were killed and more than 44 others were wounded. Among the dead were six United Nations workers, including the manager of the UNRWA shelter, making this the highest single-incident death toll for UN staff during the Gaza war and raising the cumulative number of UNRWA staff killed since October 2023 to 220.

The attack followed a pattern of prior strikes on the same site and other schools in the area. On 6 July 2024, the same Al-Jawni school, then sheltering roughly 2,000 refugees, was hit in an IDF raid that killed sixteen Palestinians. On 7 July, the Holy Family school in Gaza City, housing hundreds of refugees, was struck, killing four. On 8 July, another Nuseirat UNRWA-run school was hit, causing injuries. UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said two-thirds of all UNRWA schools in Gaza had been struck since October 2023. UNRWA said Al-Jawni had served as a polio vaccination center only a week before the September attack. The strike came months after a UN Security Council resolution adopted on 25 March 2024 had demanded an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war.

At the time of the attack, the UN estimated around 12,000 displaced people, most of them women and children, were sheltering at the school. Witnesses described scenes in which "women and children were blown to pieces." A woman reported losing all six of her children in the strike. A man at the scene said the school held no fighters and that "the people who were distributing the aid are the ones who died, civilians."

The IDF said the strike was "a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control centre," asserting that at least nine of those killed, including three UNRWA staff, were Hamas members. UNRWA said all of its staff killed were in fact teachers.

The attack drew international condemnation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Israel's actions in Gaza "totally unacceptable." World Food Programme head Cindy McCain said her organization was "devastated" by the loss of six UN colleagues. Lazzarini denounced "endless and senseless killing, day after day." Israel responded that it was "unconscionable" the UN continued to condemn its "just war against terrorists." EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was "outraged" and accused Israel of disregarding international humanitarian law. Qatar called the strike a "horrific massacre" and demanded an independent UN investigation. An Israeli government spokesperson said the school had become "a legitimate target" containing a "Hamas command and control center."