At least nine Palestinians were killed, and 75 others were injured after an Israeli attack on a UNRWA training center designated as a shelter in Gaza's Khan Younis on Wednesday.
Two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip, the official from UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, added in a social media post on X.
The facility in Khan Younis was hit during fighting, the Gaza director of the Palestinian relief organization, Thomas White, announced on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
"The UNRWA Training Centre sheltering [tens of thousands] of displaced people has just been hit - buildings ablaze and mass casualties - safe access to/from the center has been denied for 2 days - people are trapped," White posted.
In recent days, Israel has increased the intensity of its attacks in Khan Younis, the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of Palestinians are currently fleeing the embattled city with nowhere safe to seek refuge amid indiscriminate Israeli attacks.
Israel's army did not comment specifically on the incident when asked.
Civilians were also present in the densely populated area, and there were also emergency shelters and hospitals, the military admitted. The location therefore required "very specific procedures and precise operations" in order to minimize damage to bystanders.
Nearly 25,500 Palestinians have now been confirmed killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave said in a statement Tuesday.
Over 800,000 Gazans face death by starvation and thirst, amid Israel's inhumane blockade on the Palestinian enclave.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has continued a complete siege of Gaza by closing all crossings with the outside world. The Rafah crossing is partially opened for limited aid entry, the exit of dozens of patients and injured individuals and several foreign passport holders.
On Nov. 24, Israel allowed small quantities of humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, within a one-week pause reached between resistance groups in Gaza and Israel, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. The pause included a hostage swap deal.