At least 35 dead in Israeli attack on UN school in central Gaza

At least 35 people were killed this Thursday in an Israeli aerial bombardment on a UN school that housed some 6,000 people displaced by the war, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that manages The enclosure. The Hamas Government in Gaza raises the figure to 40 and assures that 14 of the fatalities were children and nine were women. The Israeli army recognizes the attack, but speaks of a “precise” operation directed against 20 to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militiamen who had established a stronghold there.

In the photographs and images released by press agencies and television channels, both inside the school and in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in nearby Deir al Balah, at least 15 bodies can be seen wrapped in blankets. or in white bags. Also traces of blood on the mattresses thrown on the floor and several injuries of varying severity, including children and women.

One of the spokespersons for the Israeli army, Peter Lerner, assured in a video conference with journalists that the airstrike targeted three rooms in which between 20 and 30 Hamas militiamen were located. “We are confident that we have limited and reduced the damage to civilians in the attack.” […]. “We are confident in our intelligence and that the terrorists were there,” he added. They did not launch attacks from the school, but they hid there, he specified. The Hamas Executive has described the presence of fighters in the school as a “lie” and “invention.”

The army admits that there were civilians in the educational center, but does not recognize victims among them. Nor has it opened an investigation or spoken of an error, unlike the bombing in May of a displaced persons camp in southern Gaza, in Rafah, where
one of the two Israeli missiles launched caused a fire in which 45 Palestinians died from the flames. and the smoke.

Lazzarini recalled that the army launched the bombing at dawn and without prior warning either to the agency or to the 6,000 displaced people who were at the school. “The claims that there could be armed groups inside are shocking, but we do not have the capacity to verify it,” he noted before putting the number of UNRWA buildings bombed in eight months of war at 180 and the number of displaced people killed in those attacks at 450. despite the fact that the UN provides the parties in conflict with the coordination of their facilities, including this school. “Attacking UN facilities or using them for military objectives cannot become the new norm,” he criticized in a message on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

The school attacked is located in Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza. It is one of the areas from which the troops had withdrawn months ago and began a new ground operation the day before against the armed men of Hamas, who use guerrilla tactics and are trying to reorganize.

Israel maintains the bombings with the same force in different parts of Gaza, despite the call last Friday by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to end the war after eight months. The optimism generated by the president’s speech, presenting a phased “Israeli proposal” that would conclude in a permanent ceasefire – and which Hamas received “positively” and applauded by numerous foreign ministries – has faded since then.

Fifteen countries, including Spain, have made a unusual joint appeal, led by the United States, in support of the ceasefire agreement “right now on the table and as summarized by Biden.” “At this decisive moment, we call on Israel’s leaders, as well as Hamas, to make the final concessions necessary to close this deal.” […]. It is time for the war to end and this agreement is the necessary starting point,” they point out. Among the signatories there are three Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil and Colombia) and nine other European countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and the United Kingdom).

Hamas has asked the mediators (Egypt, Qatar and the United States) for clarifications because the proposal to end the war that Biden presented differs from the one actually presented by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Executive. “After examining the content of the Israeli document, it is clear that it does not propose the correct bases for the required agreement, since it does not guarantee a definitive ceasefire, but rather a temporary one, and does not closely link the three stipulated stages,” he indicated this Wednesday. it’s a statement.

The Islamist movement agrees to hand over in phases all the hostages in its hands (124, around a third, dead), as long as the last stop on the road is clear: the end of the war. In fact, he is asking Washington – Israel’s main ally – for guarantees that Netanyahu would not limit himself to respecting the first phase and then resume the bombing.

This first phase consists of a truce of at least six weeks during which Hamas would hand over thirty of the hostages alive (women, elderly, sick and wounded) and some of their corpses. In exchange, Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, allow displaced people in southern Gaza to return to the north (now prevented by checkpoints), withdraw its troops from populated areas and allow 600 trucks to enter each day. humanitarian aid.

Netanyahu – whose far-right partners threaten to leave the coalition if he seals the agreement – ​​refuses a permanent ceasefire without first “destroying” Hamas’s ability to fight and govern Gaza. Biden insisted in his speech that the Israeli army had destroyed Hamas in these eight months of bombings – which have left some 36,000 dead and more than half of the buildings damaged or in ruins – and is now incapable of launching another attack like the one. on October 7, which triggered the invasion of the Strip.

While maintaining the warlike rhetoric in Gaza, the prime minister has focused his attention on Lebanon in recent days. This Wednesday he visited the border area, where the Israeli army and the Hezbollah militia are involved in a daily growing – but still measured – crossfire that keeps some 100,000 Lebanese and some 60,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes. From there, a few kilometers from Lebanon, he issued a warning: “Whoever thinks that he can harm us and that we will respond by staying still is making a big mistake. We are prepared for very intense action in the north. One way or another, we will restore security in the north.”

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