Global outrage against Israel grows: Dozens killed in attack on UN school

GAZA STRIP

The global outcry against Israel is intensifying again after a hospital in the Gaza Strip reported that at least 37 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a UN school on Thursday.

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The attack came after US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators resumed talks on a ceasefire and hostage exchange in the eight-month-long war.

The United States demanded “full” transparency from Israel regarding the attack.

“The Israeli government has announced that it will release more information about this attack, including the names of those killed. We expect them to be fully transparent in releasing this information,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the attack as “just another horrific example of the price civilians pay.”

“There must be accountability for everything that happened in Gaza,” said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for an “independent investigation into the attack.”

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Israel accuses Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip of using schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, including facilities of UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, as centers of operations – the militants deny these allegations.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah, near Nuseirat, said it had received the bodies of at least “37 martyrs” as a result of the attack.

Faisal Thari, a displaced Gazan who had sought refuge in the school, told AFP: “Why? What did we do that they are bombing us?”

In a statement, Hamas denounced a “new crime … against our people.”

A medic said another Israeli attack at dawn killed six people in a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and witnesses reported heavy artillery shelling in the Bureij and Al-Maghazi camps in the same area.

A source in Gaza’s southernmost city told AFP that Israeli warplanes had also attacked parts of Rafah.

Spain joins the ICJ case

The military said a soldier was killed in Gaza on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 295 since the ground offensive in the Palestinian territory began on October 27.

Israel began its war against Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks, which, according to official Israeli figures, killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians.

In addition, Hamas took 252 hostages, 121 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the army, 37 of them are dead.

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According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 36,000 people, most of them civilians.

Israel is facing increasing diplomatic isolation: international courts accuse the country of war crimes and several European countries recognize a Palestinian state.

Spain, which sparked Israel’s anger last week by formally recognizing a Palestinian state, said on Thursday it was the latest country to join South Africa’s lawsuit at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address members of the US Congress on July 24, top Republican politicians announced on Thursday.

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– Peace Initiative –

US President Joe Biden last week outlined a three-phase Israeli plan that calls for a six-week cessation of fighting while Israeli prisons exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners and increased aid deliveries to Gaza.

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The G7 powers and Arab states have supported the proposal, and on Wednesday 16 heads of state and government joined Biden in signing an agreement calling on Hamas to accept the deal.

“There is no time to lose. We call on Hamas to conclude this agreement,” the White House said in a statement.

Egyptian state-affiliated news channel Al-Qahera quoted a senior source on Thursday as saying that Cairo had “received positive signs from the Palestinian movement signaling its desire for a ceasefire.”

But Beirut-based senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan expressed doubts about the proposal on Thursday, calling it “mere words from Biden in a speech.”

The spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Hamas had not yet commented on the ceasefire plan.

Among the biggest points of contention is Hamas’s insistence on a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal – demands that Israel has so far rejected.

Lebanon: “Escalation”

The war has led to an escalation of regional tensions, with violence increasing between Israel and its allies on the one hand and Iranian-backed armed groups on the other.

Regular cross-border clashes between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, leading to mass evacuations on both sides, have intensified.

The Israeli military announced on Thursday that a soldier had been killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on Hurfeish the previous day.

Israeli politicians have threatened more intensive fighting against Hezbollah, which last waged a major war against Israel in 2006.

Netanyahu was in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, a day after declaring that Israel was prepared “for a very intensive operation” along the border with Lebanon.

Miller of the US State Department said any “escalation” in Lebanon would “significantly harm Israel’s overall security”.