“We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire,” an eyewitness told Reuters.

Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa school set fire to tents and classrooms. Source: AAP / Haitham Imad/ EPA

The Israeli military said Hamas and allied group Islamic Jihad were operating within the school and that it took precautions to reduce harm to civilians before it struck there.

The Gaza health ministry said an Israeli missile hit the upper building of the Durra Children’s Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No-one was killed.

Displaced Palestinians inspect the damage to the Yaffa School following the Israeli airstrike. Source: AAP / Haitham Imad/ EPA

Since a January ceasefire collapsed on 18 March, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel of Gaza’s land.

Israel has also imposed a blockade on all goods into Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March.

Foreign ministers call for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza

“Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change,” the ministers said in a statement.

On Wednesday, the group released an edited video of hostage Omri Miran, 48, pleading for a deal to be made.