LAST UPDATE | 27 Jul
AT LEAST 30 people have been killed and 100 others injured after an Israeli strike on a school in Deir al-Balah in Gaza today, the health ministry said.
The site had been used to accommodate people who had been displaced as a result of the ongoing conflict in the region. About 4,000 displaced people had taken refuge there, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has condemned the attack this afternoon, labelling it “inhumane and despicable” and accusing Israel of using “disproportionate force”.
He renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and unimpeded access for aid into Gaza.
The Israeli military said it carried out a strike on the school targeting Hamas “terrorists” operating from there.
“A short while ago, the targeting of Khadija school, which had a field medical unit inside it, in Deir el-Balah area, resulted in 30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded,” the health ministry in Gaza said in a statement.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the strike was carried out following “precise… intelligence of terrorists operating in a Hamas compound and control centre inside the Khadija school”.
“In parallel, the terrorists developed and stored large quantities of weapons inside the compound,” it added.
The field hospital located inside the school belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, according to hospital director Khalil al-Daqran.
Footage posted online by people in the area showed a street littered with dead bodies and people scrambling to carry wounded children away from the scene of the deadly strike.
Near the hospital, Associated Press journalists saw an ambulance driving along a dusty road as a few people ran in the opposite direction.
An injured man lay on a stretcher on the ground. A body covered with a blanket and a dead toddler were inside the ambulance.
Inside the school, classrooms were in ruins. People were searching for victims under the rubble and some were gathering remains of those who were killed.
Today’s strike on the school in Deir al-Balah is the latest in a spate of intensive Israeli bombardment that has forced thousands of people to flee, many for the third or fourth time since the invasion began in October last year.
The UN said this week that 90% of the Gazan population has been displaced.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said today that Israel’s military operation around Khan Younis has killed about 170 people and wounded hundreds since it started on Monday.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told the AFP news agency many people had been displaced again today as the Israeli assault continued.
“The questions is where will these residents go?” Basal said.
“Anyone who sees the situation in Khan Younis will witness thousands of people spread out on the ground, on the roads, in areas that unfortunately are not suitable for living.
“With no other options available, they are exposing themselves to death.”
Earlier today, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for residents of the southern city, after retrieving the bodies of five Israelis and warning of new operations.
The United Nations said more than 180,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Younis since the Israeli operation began on Monday.
The evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, it added, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” across the Palestinian territory.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council yesterday, UNRWA’s deputy commissioner general Antonia Marie de Meo said:
“More than 2 million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale.”
She said that famine remains a risk for the population including in southern Gaza.
"More than 2 million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale"@UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General De Meo tells the UN Security Council that people's lives in #Gaza are dominated by fear, hunger, disease and displacement pic.twitter.com/Eyj9gTTXFh
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 26, 2024
Simon Harris said:
“This latest attack on a school by the Israeli military is a further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence. Targeting an area populated with displaced families is inhumane and despicable.”
“Israel continues to use disproportionate force and is engaging in a war that is having an unacceptable level of civilian death and injury, especially to children.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier has posted a video online showing his team blowing up a water reservoir in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.
Rafah | Rafah’s water reservoir blown up
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) July 26, 2024
Israeli soldier from the combat engineering corps sharing footage on his personal account blowing Rafah’s water reservoir in Tel Sultan neighborhood “in honor of Shabbat” as he describes it. pic.twitter.com/bpCghkOWeQ
Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi, who has been comprehensively documenting the actions of Israeli soldiers throughout the war, shared the video on social media with the translation: “Destruction of the Tal Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat.”
Shabbat is the Jewish Day of Rest and falls every week between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday.
Gaza’s drinking water infrastructure has been decimated by the Israeli invasion of the besieged territory. In recent days, polio has been detected in samples taken from Gaza and the Israeli military said it would vaccinate its soldiers while they are on leave.
Targeting civilian infrastructure, or “objects” in international humanitarian law terms, is a war crime, one which has been alleged in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
With reporting from © AFP 2024, Press Association and Muiris O’Cearbhaill.
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