BEIRUT, December 12. /TASS/. The Palestinian Hamas movement has condemned the actions of the Israeli occupation authorities after they destroyed two schools of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the North of the Gaza Strip.

"The Israeli military had violently expelled the refugee families who were sheltering there from the premises of the primary and secondary school in Beit Hanoun camp and then destroyed the buildings," the movement said in a statement posted on its Telegram channel.

It says that "the international community must take action to protect civilians in the Palestinian enclave from the brutal measures of the occupiers, who are destroying social infrastructure and treating UN educational institutions with contempt."

"Israeli forces are implementing a sinister plan to forcibly displace Palestinians, which is one of the main goals of their invasion of the Gaza Strip," the statement stressed.

Earlier, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said the agency's schools host 160,000 refugees in the north of the enclave. Across the Gaza Strip, some 1 million internally displaced people are sheltering in 149 UNRWA facilities.

The Israeli Air Force has repeatedly launched missile strikes on UNRWA schools. Thus, on November 23, an attack on the building of the Abu Hussein school in the Jabalia camp, which served as a shelter for several thousand displaced individuals, killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 100.