Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa Agence France-Presse Displaced Palestinians gather in the courtyard of a Gaza City school hit by an Israeli strike that killed more than 93 people, August 10, 2024.
Agence France-Presse in Gaza
Posted at 10:03 a.m.
- Middle East
The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian movement Hamas, said Saturday that 93 people had died in Israeli strikes on a school in Gaza City that the Israeli army said was serving as a command center for “terrorists.”
These strikes, the toll of which cannot be independently verified, are among the deadliest since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, according to data provided by the Islamist movement.
Hamas denounced a “horrible crime” and a “dangerous escalation”, while Israel agreed on Friday to resume talks on a truce in the Gaza Strip on August 15 after an urgent appeal by mediating countries in the face of the risk of a flare-up between Iran and its allies on the one hand and Israel on the other.
Located in the center of Gaza City, the al-Tabi’een school struck on the night of Friday to Saturday was serving as a shelter for around 250 displaced people, the majority of whom were women and children, according to government media sources. of Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal reported several strikes that “targeted two floors of the Al-Tabi’een Quranic school and the (adjacent) mosque with three missiles, killing 93 people, including eleven children and six women.”
“Dozens of people were injured, some of whom are in intensive care, and there are many unidentified body parts and missing persons,” he added.
The Israeli army indicated on X that “the complex and the mosque […] served as military installations for Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” used to “carry out terrorist attacks.”
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« Bodies Piled Up »
Rescuers were picking up bloodied bodies from a destroyed building and then transporting them to ambulances, according to AFP footage. “People in the school were performing dawn prayers” at the time of the strike, said a rescuer who preferred not to be named, saying he found “bodies piled on top of each other.”
Awakened by explosions before dawn, Sakr, a Gaza City resident, went to the scene where he saw “children's bodies scattered in the street.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borell, said he was “horrified.” “At least 10 schools have been targeted in recent weeks. “There is no justification for these massacres,” he wrote on X.
The UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesesca Albanese, accused Israel of “genocide of the Palestinians” and Turkey denounced “a new crime against humanity.”
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates condemned the attack and Qatar called for an “urgent international investigation.”
After ten months of war, the Israeli army continues to fight the Islamist movement in the Palestinian territory.
It said on Friday that it was engaged in fighting in the region of Khan Younis, the large city in the south of the territory reduced to ruins, after having called on the population to evacuate districts in the east of the city.
Resumption of negotiations ?
According to Hamas, the war has caused nearly 40,000 deaths in the small besieged Palestinian territory, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced.
It has also exacerbated tensions between Iran and its allies, notably Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, on the one hand, and Israel on the other.
And fears of a flare-up have redoubled following the assassination, on July 31 in Tehran, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, attributed to Israel by Iran, and that, the day before, of the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Chokr, killed in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
Iran and Hezbollah have promised retaliation, and the international community is striving to avoid an escalation.
On Thursday, the three mediating countries, Qatar, the United States and Egypt, called for the resumption on August 15 of indirect talks with a view to a truce, indicating that a framework agreement was now on the table.
Israel has accepted the dispatch of a “delegation of negotiators”, while Hamas, which this week appointed Yahya Sinouar as its head, accused by Israel of being one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, has not yet given its response.
Fears in Haifa and Lebanon
“Any agreement accepted by Hamas will also be recognized by us,” the Iranian mission to the UN said on Saturday, affirming however that a ceasefire in Gaza has “nothing to do” with the response promised by Tehran to the assassination of the Hamas leader.
Lebanon remains on high alert and concern also reigns in northern Israel, faced with the prospect of a major strike by Hezbollah, while exchanges of fire along the border, between Israel and Hezbollah, have been almost daily since the start of the war in Gaza.
The attack by Hamas commandos in southern Israel resulted in the death of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Israelis.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union.
Its offensive in Gaza has so far killed 39,790 people, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed. It has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian territory.