Israeli attack on school housing displaced Gazans leaves four dead – second attack in two days

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war.

Gaza:

Civil defense in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said at least four people were killed in an attack on Sunday on a school housing displaced Palestinians, the second such Israeli attack in two days.

The Israeli military, which has long accused Palestinian terrorists of using schools and other civilian infrastructure, confirmed the attack “in the area of ​​the school” in Gaza City.

A statement said the school complex was being used as a hiding place and housed “a Hamas weapons factory.”

The Civil Defense said that Ihab al-Ghusain, the Hamas government’s deputy labor minister, was among those killed in the attack on the Holy Family School.

The attack came a day after a UN-run school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp was hit. Gaza’s Health Ministry said the attack killed 16 people, but the United Nations condemned it. Israel said militants were hiding there.

Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that militants are hiding in civilian infrastructure.

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war, which has now raged for ten months, and many have sought refuge in UN-run schools throughout the besieged territory.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, expressed outrage at the repeated attacks on its premises.

“A new day. A new month. A new school hit,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini on the social media platform X.

#Gaza
Another day.
Another month.
Another school hit.

Once again, @UNRWA School hit by Israeli forces.
The school in the Middle Areas was home to nearly 2,000 internally displaced people, with dozens of casualties reported.

Since the war began nine months ago today:

-…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 7, 2024

UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told AFP that 190 – or more than half – of the agency’s facilities in Gaza had been hit, “some more than once”, since the war began with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.

“When the war started, we closed the schools and they became emergency shelters,” she said.

As of Thursday, 194 UNRWA staff had been killed, Touma added.

Since then, the UN agency reported separately that two more people were killed in an Israeli attack on Saturday.

During the war, there were 450 “incidents” involving UNRWA buildings, Touma said. The damage was “unprecedented in the history of the UN.”

“Any attack on UN facilities is shocking and, in the case of this conflict, represents a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law,” she added.

The attack on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.

In addition, Hamas took hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the military, 42 of them are dead.

In response, Israel launched a military offensive that killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)