Seven killed in Gaza as Israel targets university campus and other sites

Israeli air strike kills three security guards in one of two attacks on the Islamic University in Gaza City.

At least seven Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, including one that targeted a university campus in Gaza City.

Three security guards were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Islamic University campus on Sunday, the second attack that targeted the institution in the space of a few hours.

Reporting from the scene immediately after the attack, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said, “The aftermath was massive.”

“The bloodstains, the pieces of flesh of the bodies that were torn apart were on the ground; the smell of the acrid, burning concrete mixed with the flesh and the blood,” Mahmoud added, saying that the Al Jazeera team had just finished filming on site and greeted the three security guards before the strike killed them.

“We could hear the hissing sound of flying shrapnel everywhere to the point we thought we were going to be hit,” our correspondent said.

In the earlier drone strike on the campus, seven female students were injured by flying shrapnel.

“One of them was seriously injured and was transferred to a nearby field hospital,” Mahmoud said.

Separately, in southern Gaza, the Nasser Medical Complex reported that two people were killed as a result of Israeli shelling in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis. Several people were also wounded, including a child.

A person was also killed in an Israeli drone strike east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, and another person was killed, and several others wounded, in an attack on al-Rashid Street, near Hamad Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

Attacks on education

The Popular Resistance Committees in Palestine condemned the university attacks, calling on mediators and international guarantors to step in to stop Israeli violations.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, nearly ۹۵ percent of Gaza’s higher education campuses have been destroyed or damaged since Israel’s genocidal war began in October ۲۰۲۳.

Mahmoud noted that the majority of buildings at the Islamic University were already destroyed before Sunday’s attacks. “Only a couple of these buildings are partially standing,” he said.

The incident is “a reminder that a sense of security is painfully out of reach, even inside the place where students are supposed to be learning without the fear of these attacks”, he added.

The latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza show that at least ۱,۵۵۱ people have been killed since the “ceasefire” began in October ۲۰۲۵, and ۵,۵۷۳ have been injured.

The total death toll from Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip is ۷۴,۵۴۴, with at least ۱۷۵,۶۹۲ people wounded since October ۲۰۲۳.

Israel also continues to occupy more and more land inside the Strip, with almost two-thirds of Gaza now under Israel’s military control or subject to its restrictions.

Palestinians there are also experiencing an escalating food crisis as a result of ongoing Israeli crossing closures and reduced international funding for assistance.