• 11 children and six women among those killed
• Attack sparks global condemnation, calls for ceasefire
• US says it’s ‘deeply concerned’ about civilian casualties

CAIRO: An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school compound housing displaced Palestinian families killed around 100 people, the Gaza Civil Emergency Service said on Saturday, sparking international condemnation despite Tel Aviv’s insistence that it was targeting Hamas fighters.

Video from the site showed body parts scattered around and more bodies being carried away and covered in blankets on the floor. Empty food tins lay in a puddle of blood, and burnt mattresses and a child’s doll lay among the debris.

In another video, men prayed over a dozen body bags laid out on the ground of the Tabeen school complex.

The territory’s Civil Emergency Service, which has a credible record in stating casualty numbers, and the government media office said in separate statements that the complex had been attacked as its occupants were performing dawn prayers.

“So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are unidentified remains,” Palestinian civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told a televised press conference.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter in Gaza’s schools, most of which have been closed since the conflict began 10 months ago. Around 350 families had been sheltering at the compound, Bassal said — some of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.

The upper floor housing families and the lower floor, used as a mosque, were both hit, he said.

The Israeli military said the death toll was inflated. “The strike was carried out using three precise munitions, which cannot cause the amount of damage that is being reported,” the military said in a statement. It added that no severe damage was caused to the compound.

“The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on X.

Hamas said the strike was a horrific crime and a serious escalation. Izzat El-Reshiq of Hamas’s political office said the dead did not include a single combatant.

A separate strike on Saturday killed three Palestinians in Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza and another killed one person in nearby Deir Al-Balah, medics said.

Later in the day, an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, where the Israeli army has operated since May, medics said.

Separately, the Israeli military said the head of general security in Hamas’s military wing, Walid Alsousi, had been assassinated in southern Gaza. There was no immediate Hamas comment.

World reactions

Pakistan strongly condemned the Israeli strike and said the attack on a children’s school was an open aggression and barbarity which had no precedent in history.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Israel has crossed all limits in its open aggression, and called upon the international community, including the United Nations, to take practical steps to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression.

The White House said it was “deeply concerned” about the Israeli strike. “We are deeply concerned about reports of civilian casualties in Gaza” following the strike, National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement, adding that the US was “asking for further details”.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X that he was horrified by the images from the school.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy wrote on X that he was “appalled by the Israeli military strike on al-Tabeen school and the tragic loss of life,” adding that “we need an immediate ceasefire to protect civilians, free all hostages, and end restrictions on aid”.

A French foreign ministry statement noted that “for several weeks, school buildings have been repeatedly targeted, with an intolerable number of civilian victims”.

Iran, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye all condemned the strike.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kan­ani said the strike “showed once again that Israel does not respect any of the rules and regulations of international law and moral and human principles.”

A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, urged Israel’s ally Washington to put an end to “blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, inclu­d­ing children, women, and the elderly”.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said it should serve as a turning point as mediators push to resume ceasefire talks.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024