A hospital in the Gaza Strip on Thursday reported the death of at least 37 people in a bombing against a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), with the Israeli army claiming responsibility for the strike which targeted “a Hamas base”.
Posted at 6:42 a.m.
Updated at 2:39 p.m.
On the eve of entering the ninth month of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory, US President Joe Biden and 16 other leaders urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal currently on the table.
In the meantime, Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip without respite, in response to the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil.
The Israeli army said in a statement that “army fighter jets […] had carried out a precise strike on a Hamas base located inside an Unrwa school in the region of Nousseirat” (center), claiming to have eliminated in this attack “several terrorists” having taken part, according to her, in the attack of October 7.
The Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, located near Nousseirat, reported at least 37 deaths in this school where, according to Unrwa, there were 6,000 displaced people.
The United States called on Israel to be “fully transparent,” including by “making public” the “names of the people” killed in the strike, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Hamas condemned a “continuing war of extermination and ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinian people.
We were sleeping, and at 2 a.m. we saw the ceiling, walls and windows falling on us.
Salmane al-Maqdama, a Palestinian witness to the bombing.
The head of Unrwa Philippe Lazzarini affirmed that Israel had struck “without prior warning” the school, transformed into a shelter for the population displaced by the fighting.
This is “another terrifying example of the price paid by civilians […] who are just trying to survive,” regretted the Secretary General of the Nations, Antonio Guterres, according to his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
Other bombings
PHOTO JEHAD ALSHRAFI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah reported a death toll of 37 in this strike.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by the attack carried out in southern Israel by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Palestinian territory on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, the majority civilians killed that that day, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 251 people were taken as hostages during this attack. After a truce in November which notably allowed the release of around a hundred of them, 120 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 41 are dead, according to the Israeli army.
In response to the October 7 attack, the Israeli army launched a deadly offensive in the small coastal territory where Hamas took power in 2007. At least 36,654 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, according to reports. data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
In addition to the strike on the Unrwa school, witnesses also indicated that rocket attacks took place in the center of the Gaza Strip.
According to a local Source, Israeli aircraft also carried out several strikes in the east and center of the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt, where the Israeli army launched ground operations early may.
This offensive on Rafah, which pushed a million Palestinians, according to the UN, to flee the city, also led to the closure of the crossing point with Egypt, essential for the entry of international aid into the territory. besieged which at the start of the war had some 2.4 million inhabitants.
“Only words”
On the diplomatic level, Joe Biden presented on May 31 a road map proposed by him by Israel which provides, in a first phase, a six-week ceasefire accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza , the release of certain hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Men were inspecting the damage caused by the strike on Thursday morning.
“It is time for this war to end and this agreement is a necessary starting point,” the White House said Thursday in a joint statement with the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and South American countries, calling on Israel and Hamas “to make the final necessary compromises”.
Hamas will present its response to this proposal “in the coming days,” said a “senior official” on Thursday cited by Al-Qahera News, a media outlet close to the Egyptian intelligence services, reporting “positive signals” from the Islamist movement. Palestinian.
But the contradictory demands of the two camps leave little hope of seeing the plan announced by Mr. Biden come to fruition.
A senior Hamas official said Thursday that there was no “new proposal” for a ceasefire: “These are just words spoken by (Joe) Biden in a speech,” said Osama Hamdan from Beirut.
“So far, the Americans have not presented any document that commits them to respecting what Biden said,” he continued, adding that Hamas was ready to accept a deal only if it understands the demands of movement, including a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Faced with international pressure, Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
“Israel is waging a difficult campaign on many fronts […] in a context of complex international pressures,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit Thursday to a military command center in the occupied West Bank.
Finally, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa declared Thursday in Baghdad that the Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank was ready to re-establish a “unified” Palestinian leadership after the war ravaging the Gaza Strip.
