Deir al-Balah (Gaza Strip)/Barcelona. More than 30 people, including 14 children and nine women, were killed in an Israeli attack on a school in central Gaza early Thursday, local health officials said. According to Palestinian officials, displaced people had taken refuge in the school, while the Israeli army claims that Hamas terrorists were carrying out their activities from the school.
Hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital said at least 33 people were killed in the attack, including 14 children and nine women. Six people were killed in an attack on a house at night, according to the records.
Both attacks took place in Nuseirat, one of several refugee camps in Gaza.
Pictures circulating on social media showed rows of bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags in a hospital courtyard. Mohammad al-Karim, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, said he saw people looking for loved ones among the bodies, and one woman pleaded with medics to show her the faces of the bodies because her son was missing since the attack. Israeli troops have repeatedly returned to this part of the Gaza Strip and have attacked it before.
Witnesses and hospital officials said the al-Sardi school, which is run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, was attacked in the early hours of the morning. Ayman Rashid, who took refuge in the school after being displaced from Gaza City, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floors, where families were taking shelter. He said he helped pull out the bodies of five people, including an elderly man and two children.
Several videos of the incident are circulating on social media showing many injured people being treated on the hospital floor. Most of the hospital is without power as fuel for generators is in limited supply. The Israeli army said its fighter jets attacked a school run by a UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians. The Israeli army claimed that the ‘Hamas’ and ‘Islamic Jihad’ organizations used the school as a shield for their activities. However, the army did not immediately offer any evidence of this. ‘UNRWA’ schools in Gaza have been serving as shelters since the beginning of the war. Most of the population of more than 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced due to this war.
The Israeli army claimed, “Several steps were taken before the attack to reduce the risk of harm to innocent civilians during the attack, including aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.” The Nusserat refugee camp is in the middle of the Gaza Strip. It is a Palestinian refugee camp in central Gaza that dates back to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. At least 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, while hundreds of thousands of others have been killed in operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Spain will apply to become a party to the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice
Spain will petition the International Court of Justice to seek permission to become a party to a lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel. Spain’s foreign minister announced this on Thursday. South Africa has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza in a petition filed in the United Nations International Court of Justice.
Spain is the first European country to join the petition filed by South Africa in the International Court last year. The petition alleges that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention during the military action on Gaza and a large number of civilians have died. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya and Palestine have already applied to join the case. The court has ordered Israel to immediately stop military action in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, but Israel has not complied with the order.
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said in Madrid, “We have taken this decision because of the ongoing military action in Gaza. We want peace to be established in Gaza and West Asia and for this we should provide every kind of support in the court.” Israel has denied that its army has committed genocide. According to Israel, it is only carrying out a campaign to crush Hamas after the attack on southern Israel in October last year.