Israeli airstrikes on Gaza school kill more than 100

'We could not find my father's head. We could only identify him from his hands,' a victim of the bombing tells Bel Trew

- Bel Trew, Salma Ouaguira and Nedal Hamdouna

At just past 4am yesterday, Palestinian families displaced from other parts of Gaza, gathered for Fajr prayers at dawn inside alTabaeen school that had turned into a makeshift shelter in Gaza City.

The multi-storey compound – which houses a mosque on the lower floor – had become home for around 4000 people, according to local authorities.

Just before prayers were about to begin, the Israeli missiles tore through the congregation leaving bodies of worshipers “cut to pieces”, witnesses told The Independent.

Osama Al-Kahlout, 28, who was displaced from Gaza City and was living in the school with his family, said his father – a 63year-old Arabic language university lecturer – was among the people killed in the bombing. Mr Kahlout said his father prayed at dawn every day and that his body was found in a bloodbath under the rubble.

“We could not find my father’s head. We could only identify him from his hands, with a certain mark,” his distraught son told The Independent. “The ground was full of blood and bodies. Wherever you walked, you found blood.”

Ibrahim al-Masry, who was also sheltering in the school after being displaced from Beit Hanoun, said he only survived as he was running late, and so was standing on the upper floor of the building when the bombing began. He says it took him 15 minutes to get down to the site of the strike, as the fire raging was so huge.

He said: “The injuries were horrifying: amputated hands and legs. I saw two wounded people engulfed in flames running out of the mosque and screaming ‘help up, help us’.”

The powerful missiles were described as emanating a heat so intense one doctor treating the wounded at al-Ahli hospital said in a voice note “the bodies were shattered, burned, roasted actually”.