Women and children among 14 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school

Sep 12, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – At least 14 people including women and children  have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.

The news agency also reported that Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank arrested 30 Palestinians in Hebron, Jenin, Ramallah and Bethlehem, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Regarding the strike the Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The claim could not be independently confirmed. Officials from Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said they had received 10 dead from the strike, and another four dead were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah. At least one woman and two children were among those killed, and at least 18 people were wounded, hospital officials said.

One of the children was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defence agency, which does emergency rescue work after Israeli strikes, the agency said in a statement. Selmi hadn’t seen his daughter for 10 months, since he remained in north Gaza to keep working while his family fled south, the agency said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders are living in Gaza’s schools. The school hit Thursday – called the al-Jaouni Boys Preparatory School, one of the many in Gaza run by the UN agency for Palestinians UNWRA – has been hit by multiple strikes over the course of the war. Israel frequently bombs schools, saying they are being used by Hamas militants. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties from its strikes, saying its fighters base themselves and operate among civilians. Hamas has denied the claims.

A CNN report states Israeli raids continued in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday with the IDF saying its “aircraft conducted an aerial strike during the counterterrorism operation in Tulkarm.”  The CNN said at least five people were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, after the Israeli military said Wednesday it carried out operations in the areas of Tammon and Tubas.

The IDF said it began the operation with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) “against terrorist infrastructures,” and an air strike was carried out on “an armed terrorist squad” in the Tubas area, the IDF said.  The IDF added in a later statement that an Israeli “aircraft struck and eliminated a terrorist cell consisting of five terrorists armed with explosives who posed a threat to the forces” during its overnight operations in Tubas and Tammon.

The governor of Tubas, Ahmad As’ad, told CNN the strike hit a group of “young unarmed Palestinians” around 3 a.m. local time. The group, who were in their teens and twenties, were sitting near a mosque at the time, he said. As’ad also said five people were killed, as did the Palestine Red Crescent Society.  Video obtained by CNN showed at least one motionless body near a mosque in Tubas.  As’ad said “we were informed by the Palestinian Coordination Office of an Israeli military operation on the city and surrounding areas” before the strike.

Israeli forces raided the city and blocked access to the government hospital, he said, adding that there is an Israeli military imposed curfew. “The situation is dangerous,” he said.

CNN has reached out to the IDF.

The Israeli military has carried out major raids and airstrikes in multiple parts of the West Bank in recent weeks.  On August 28, it launched a large counter-terror operation with the ISA in the areas of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas in the north of the West Bank, in an offensive Israel said was its most expansive in years.  Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that operation had been staged to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel.

Israel has stepped up its military operations in the West Bank, where clashes have become more frequent since Israel began its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Around 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah and the UN, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

Meanwhile, at the Jordan Valley, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there are attempts to smuggle “terrorists and weapons” from Jordan into the occupied West Bank. “There is an attempt to smuggle both terrorists and weapons … We are working here in cooperation with all parties to stop this,” he said, referring to Jordan.

Netanyahu said Israel will build a stronger border barrier after three Israelis were killed on Sunday when a Jordanian truck driver opened fire after he entered the West Bank through a major crossing. “We will do it in coordination with the neighbours,” he said. “It is important for us to ensure that this border remains a border of peace – peace and security.” Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement 30 years ago. The countries maintain ties though diplomatic relations have been strained by Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza and attacks on the West Bank.

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• children, Gaza, Israeli, strike, Women

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