The chief of the UN organization responsible for Palestinian refugees in Gaza claimed on Thursday that thousands of displaced persons seeking shelter in the area had been struck by Israel “without prior warning” at one of its schools.
“Another UNRWA school turned shelter attacked,” Philippe Lazzarini posted about the school in the Nuseirat neighborhood of central Gaza on social networking platform X.
According to Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, fighter jets struck the school, killing nine “terrorists”.
Approximately thirty members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas were hiding in three classrooms when the jets targeted them, Hagari alleged in a televised speech.
According to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, the strike claimed the lives of at least 37 Palestinians.
When the school was struck, according to Lazzarini, 6,000 displaced persons were being housed there.
He stated that UNRWA “shares the coordinates of all its facilities (including this school) with the Israeli army and other parties in the conflict” .
“Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law,” Lazzarini stated.
“Suspected war crime” is how Israeli rights organization B’Tselem described the strike.
“If, as Israel claims, Hamas used the school to plan military operations, this action is illegal, but it cannot justify the massive harm to civilians who sought shelter in the school from the horror of prolonged fighting,” the group said in a statement.
“As demonstrated throughout the war, the killing of civilians is an unavoidable result of the character of Israel’s military activity in the Gaza Strip,” it said, urging the international community to help stop the fighting.
Hagari claimed that in a another incident, three Hamas members were slain by Israeli forces when they attempted to cross the border from the Rafah region.
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