Deadly Israeli strike in Gaza, Hamas says, deadly raid on Golan annexed by Israel

An Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people Saturday in the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to Hamas, and 12 people were killed by a rocket fired from Lebanon into the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights by Hezbollah, according to the Israeli army.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Lebanese Islamist movement would pay “a heavy price” for the attack that hit the Arab town of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied being the author.

The White House responded by reaffirming the United States' “unwavering support” for Israel and assuring “to support efforts to end these terrible attacks.” EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell condemned “this bloodbath” and called for an “independent international investigation.”

According to a new report provided by Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli army, the attack on Majdal Shams “caused the death of 12 young boys and girls.” Eighteen other youths were injured, according to emergency services.

Israeli security forces and medics treat a wounded man at the site of a strike fired from Lebanon in the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, July 27, 2024 © AFP – Jalaa MAREY

This is “the deadliest attack against Israeli civilians since October 7,” Hagari said, referring to the date of the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, which has inflamed the region ever since.

Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement, opened a front against Israel on October 8 on their common border and has been exchanging fire with the Israeli army on a daily basis.

The rocket fire came after a Lebanese security source announced that four Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters had been killed by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.

An injured Palestinian woman is carried to an ambulance after an Israeli strike on the Khadija school sheltering displaced people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on July 27, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

Despite international calls for calm in the region and a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory, the war continues unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In its center, “the Khadija school, which housed a makeshift medical unit in the Deir al-Balah area, was targeted (by a strike that) left 30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded,” Hamas's health ministry said in a statement.

“I have “I was shocked by the scene,” Moustafa al-Rifati told AFP: “People were flying, their heads, legs and hands were flying.”

A Palestinian inspects the damage caused by an Israeli strike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on July 27, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

This is at least the eighth time a school has been hit since July 6. According to the Gaza Civil Defense, the structure was sheltering around 4,000 displaced people.

The Israeli army said it had targeted “terrorists” who were operating from the school.

Josep Borrell condemned the strike, and World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated his call for “an immediate ceasefire and the protection of civilians.”

– Displaced for the “fifth time” –

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The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel, which killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.

Palestinians march in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on July 27, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom have died, according to the army.

The offensive launched in Israel's response has left at least 39,258 people dead, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government's health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.

In recent months, the Israeli army has returned to several areas of the Palestinian territory from which it had claimed to have driven Hamas out, such as Khan Younis.

A Palestinian searches through the rubble of his house destroyed during a bombing in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, July 27, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

It expanded its operations in this town in the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday after rockets were fired from this area towards Israel.

Around 170 people were killed and hundreds injured in six days, a Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP on Saturday.

In this context, the army called on residents of several neighborhoods of the city to evacuate to al-Mawasi, further west, an area designated as a “humanitarian zone”. But the Palestinians fear going there, the area having already been targeted by Israeli bombings.

According to the UN, more than 180,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Younes since Monday. “This is the fifth time I have been displaced,” one of them told AFP.

Humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip © AFP – Omar KAMAL

Four people were also killed on Saturday and several injured in Rafah (south) by an airstrike, doctors told AFP.

The Israeli army declared that it had “eliminated armed terrorist cells” in several areas.

The health and humanitarian situation is disastrous for the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants of Gaza.

After the failure of multiple negotiations on a truce associated with a release of hostages, a meeting of representatives of the mediators – Egypt, United States, Qatar – with the head of Israeli intelligence is planned for Sunday in Rome, according to Al-Qahera News, a media outlet close to Egyptian intelligence.

A woman with hands stained red, a symbol of blood, takes part in a demonstration against the Israeli government in Tel Aviv on July 27, 2024 © AFP – RONALDO SCHEMIDT

Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, accuses Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sworn to destroy it, of block any agreement.

In the evening in Tel Aviv, a new demonstration was held for the release of the hostages and against the Israeli government.

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