Another school full of displaced people, another massacre in Gaza. At least 93 people, 11 of them children, were killed this Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on a school in the Al Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza capital, according to emergency services. The Hamas government in the Strip put the figure at more than 100 and said they were practising the first prayer of the day in Islam. There were about 250 people in the prayer hall, according to witnesses quoted by local media. Others were in nearby classrooms and were hit by shrapnel or by fire, as the attack caused a fire, reports the television channel Al Jazeera. Al Ahli, the hospital where the wounded are arriving, is not coping and is reusing material for treatment. “There are still remains to be identified,” said the spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, Mahmoud Bassal, in a press conference.
The Israeli army claims that it targeted a “command and control centre serving as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders” and that it had previously taken “numerous measures to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.” It also claims that the strike was “precise,” that some 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were operating there, and that its estimate of civilian casualties is lower. According to a member of Hamas’ political bureau, Izzat el-Reshiq, “not a single fighter” was killed in the strike.
In the images from the scene, dismembered bodies can be seen on the ground and others covered by blankets. What is unusual about the attack is the high number of corpses, which brings the toll from ten months of war even closer to 40,000. This month alone, Israel has bombed four other schools housing displaced people, all in the capital of the Strip, leaving a total of 80 dead. Its troops have also returned this week to the city of Khan Yunis, after forcing the umpteenth forced displacement of its inhabitants, which has left new images of long lines of civilians carrying their few belongings in the direction of another place.
The bombing comes amid a renewed international push for a ceasefire in Gaza. Two days ago, the countries that have been mediating for months to end the war (the United States, Egypt and Qatar) called a meeting for Thursday in Doha and issued a joint statement calling on the parties to seal an agreement “without wasting any more time or excuses.” In an unusual reaction, the Foreign Ministry in Cairo has described the bombing of the school as a “deliberate murder” that shows the lack of “political will” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement that would end the invasion and allow the return of the more than 100 hostages in the Strip.
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The possibility of a ceasefire has gained momentum following a telephone conversation between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden. Above all, because of the fear of a regional war after the double murder – acknowledged or attributed to Israel – last week that has put the Middle East in its most delicate moment in decades: Hezbollah’s number two, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut; and Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, in Tehran. On Tuesday, the Palestinian Islamist movement chose Yahia Sinwar, mastermind of the attacks of October 7, 2023 and the most wanted man by Israel, to replace Haniya. Militants in Gaza hiding from troops have launched several rockets at Israel in recent days.
Mediators are hastily trying to offer Tehran and its allied Lebanese militia an end to the invasion of the Strip in exchange for moderating their announced retaliation. Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, stressed on Friday that they are ready to carry out the “clear and explicit” orders of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to apply a “harsh punishment and revenge for the blood of Ismail Haniya”. However, there are internal divergences on its scope and the more pragmatic sectors, such as the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who won the elections with a message of external détente, such as the resumption of negotiations on the 2015 nuclear agreement, mortally wounded by the withdrawal of the United States during the presidency of Donald Trump.
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