At least 29 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on a camp for displaced people outside a school in southern Gaza, hospital officials say, reports BBC.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said the strike had hit next to the gate of al-Awda school in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of the city of Khan Younis.

It said it was "looking into the reports that civilians were harmed" "adjacent" to al-Awda school, which houses displaced people from the eastern villages of Khan Younis.

The incident comes a week after the Israeli military ordered civilians to evacuate Abasan al-Kabira and other areas of eastern Khan Younis, prompting tens of thousands to flee.

The BBC has spoken to witnesses who said the area was teeming with displaced people at the time, and who recounted the bloody aftermath in graphic detail.

The attack resulted in widespread destruction and the deaths of women and children.

Body parts were scattered across the site and many people staying in tents outside the school were also injured.

Ayman Al-Dahma, 21, told the media there had been as many as 3,000 people packed into the area at the time, which he said housed a market and residential buildings.

Describing the number of casualties as “unimaginable”, he said he had seen people whose limbs had been severed by the blast.

He continued: “They said it was a safe place - that there were water and food, there were schools and everything… Suddenly a rocket comes down on you and all the people around you.”

One video showed more than a dozen dead and seriously wounded people, including several children, on the floor of a local hospital.

One source at the Nasser hospital, where the injured from Abasan al-Kabira were taken, said they expected the number of dead to increase.

This is the fourth attack on or near to schools sheltering displaced people in the past four days.

Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan