Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli shelling late Sunday had killed at least 15 people at a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza's Nuseirat camp

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli shelling late Sunday had killed at least 15 people at a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza's Nuseirat camp.

The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.

"The Al-Mufti school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and 50 wounded," said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency.

"This school shelters hundreds of displaced people from different families, including some from Gaza, the south, and various parts of the Gaza Strip," he added. 

The Israeli military said it was "looking into the reports".

The attack comes just days after an Israeli air strike on a school killed at least 28 people in Gaza's Deir el-Balah.

Israel's military regularly accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.

Civilians have borne much of the brunt of the Israeli onslaught, which according to Gaza's health ministry has killed at least 42,227 people over the past year, a majority of them civilians.

The United Nations acknowledges the figures to be reliable.

Hamas triggered the ongoing conflict in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

It resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was looking into the reports.

Earlier, five children were reportedly killed by a drone strike while playing on a street corner in northern Gaza.

A civil defence spokesman said the attack on al-Mufti school, where hundreds of displaced people from around Gaza were sheltering, had injured at least 80 people and more than a dozen were killed.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said the school-turned-shelter was meant to be used to administer polio vaccines.

Monday's rollout is the second stage in the UN's polio campaign in central Gaza, which is where most residents are now living and where the first case of polio in two decades was recently discovered in an unvaccinated baby.

four people were killed and dozens more injured at the al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza. Israel said it carried out a "precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command and control centre" inside a site previously used as a hospital.