At least 22 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli army said it had targeted a Hamas headquarters in a former school building.
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An Israeli attack on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed 22 people and wounded a further 30, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The school, in Gaza City’s Zaytun neighborhood, was sheltering displaced residents, the ministry said, adding that most of the victims were women and children.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas “command and control center” early on Saturday, “housed in a building formerly used as a school,” and said measures had been taken to limit civilian casualties, including the use of precision weapons and aerial surveillance.
Conflicting claims about Hamas’ use of schools
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces have attacked dozens of schools housing tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced from their homes by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders. The conflict has displaced 90 percent of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to UN figures.
The army has repeatedly accused Hamas of operating within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including schools, UN facilities and hospitals. The dispute over the use of the latter goes to the heart of the nearly year-long conflict.
Earlier this month, Israeli airstrikes hit a school in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 14 people, according to Palestinian medical sources. In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people who had taken shelter there.
Growing discontent among Israel’s allies
Earlier this week, the US ambassador to the United Nations condemned Israeli forces for attacking schools, humanitarian workers and civilians in the Gaza Strip, in a sign of growing US frustration with a close ally as the war approaches its first anniversary.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield issued an unusually strong rebuke of the Israeli military at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, saying many of the attacks that have injured or killed UN staff and humanitarian workers in recent weeks were “preventable.”
Many council members pointed to an Israeli attack last week on a former school-turned-civilian shelter run by the United Nations agency providing assistance to Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which left at least 18 people, including women and children, dead, including six UNRWA staff members.
Israel said it targeted a Hamas command center at the compound, and Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon claimed Monday that a Hamas fighter was killed in the attack, naming four men he told the U.N. Security Council, who he said worked for UNRWA by day and Hamas by night.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation.
Thomas-Greenfield told council members that the United States would continue to press for the need for Israel to support humanitarian efforts in the Palestinian territories and to protect humanitarian workers and facilities such as UNRWA shelters.
