Israel strikes Gaza schools, saying Hamas uses them to plan attacks
More than a dozen people were killed in Israeli strikes on two schools housing displaced people in Gaza City, Palestinian officials said, the latest in a series of attacks on education centres Israel says are being used by Hamas to plan its operations.
At least 16 people died and 37 were wounded when missiles slammed into the Abdul Fattah Hamoud and al-Zahra schools nearly simultaneously, according to the Gaza civil defence force. The schools are located less than 2km apart in the city’s eastern neighbourhoods.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “the school compounds were used by Hamas terrorists and commanders as command and control centres” from which they planned and carried out attacks.
Many Palestinians displaced by the fighting, or whose homes have been destroyed in the war, have sought shelter in schools across the Gaza Strip, crowding into disused classrooms to pool resources and in the hope that the facilities might provide some protection.
But in recent weeks, strikes on schools have become much more frequent, with Israel targeting seven schools in the eight days prior to the attacks yesterday, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office.
In a report this week, the UN said it was “horrified” by the escalation, which has seen at least 163 Palestinians – including children and women – killed in strikes on at least 17 schools over the past month.
Rights groups say there is evidence that Israel is not doing enough to distinguish civilians from combatants in Gaza, where the months-long war has killed at least 39,699 people, according to local health officials. The Gaza Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its toll, but says the majority of the dead are women and children. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it took “numerous steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strikes on the two schools, “including the use of precise munitions, surveillance, and additional intelligence”. But none of that was enough to safeguard the family of Mazen al-Fayoumi, 49, a father of 13 who had returned to the Abdul Fattah Hamoud school in Gaza City’s al-Daraj neighborhood after his rounds distributing water in the city. He lay down for a nap in the classroom where his family has been sheltering since December, when their house was destroyed. “Suddenly, there was dust,” he said. “We did not know what had happened.” He found his 17-year-old daughter dead at the door, he said, then discovered his son-in-law and niece in the schoolyard also dead. The strike had targeted a classroom opposite to where his family was staying, according to Fayoumi, who said the room was rumoured to have been used by Hamas police and “detectives”. “We do not know who was inside it, and we do not know if this is true,” he said. Hamas, which controlled Gaza for 17 years, condemned the strikes as the latest in a string of “brutal massacres against citizens in displacement and shelter centres”. It did not address allegations that its fighters had used the buildings to coordinate attacks. Israel has said that Hamas is regrouping in parts of northern Gaza, and has sent troops back multiple times to areas the military previously said were cleared.
Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, said the organisation had tracked an increase in strikes on its schools in Gaza in recent weeks.
“It’s a pattern,” she said, adding that 70% of the agency’s schools had been hit since the beginning of the war.
The vast majority were sheltering displaced Palestinians, she said, adding that as UN facilities, they should be protected at all times.
But the Israeli military, she said, had started to immediately issue statements saying the buildings were being used by Hamas.
“These are very serious claims,” she said. “We have no way to confirm or deny these claims, nor do we have the ability to investigate. What we do know is that every time these schools or buildings are hit, we’ve had civilians hit, women and children.”
As Israel continued to fight, it had ordered civilians to evacuate to increasingly smaller strips of land and caused overcrowding at schools, Touma said.
“People are everywhere,” she said of the schools, adding that sometimes hundreds were forced to share a single toilet.
The IDF yesterday announced new evacuation orders for parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
“Hamas and terrorist organisations continue to fire rockets from your areas towards the State of Israel,” IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X. “The IDF will act forcefully against these elements.”
Meanwhile, the leaders of the United States, Qatar and Egypt issued a joint statement yesterday calling on Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table on August 15 to finalise a ceasefire and hostage release agreement, saying “there is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay.”
“The three of us and our teams have worked tirelessly over many months to forge a framework agreement that is now on the table, with only the details of implementation left to conclude,” said the statement, signed by US President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
“It is time to release the hostages, begin the ceasefire, and implement this agreement,” the statement said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it would send a delegation to the resumed negotiations, to be held in Cairo or Doha, “to finalise the details for implementing the framework agreement”. Hamas gave no immediate response.
The last round of indirect talks mediated by the three governments ended nearly two weeks ago in Rome, when Israel presented new demands to the “framework” that Biden made public on May 31. US officials were reportedly furious at Netanyahu’s last-minute ultimatum, as were senior Israeli military and political leaders.
– Washington Post