Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed Tuesday in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, Hamas said, blaming Israel, as Israeli troops are engaged in a major offensive in the north of the territory.
Entering his 10e months, the war has not seen any respite as new negotiations are expected in Qatar to try to move towards a ceasefire associated with the release of the hostages held in Gaza.
The hostages were taken during an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, to which Israel responded with a major offensive in the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian Islamist movement seized power in 2007.
“A strike targeted the gate of Al-Awda school in Abassan, east of Khan Younis [sud]”There were 29 martyrs,” said a medical source at the city’s Nasser Hospital.
Hamas blamed Israel, giving the same death toll of 29, “mostly children and women.”
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A paramedic carries an injured child to the emergency department of Nassr Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 9, 2024.
“This massacre is a continuation of the crime of genocide that the occupying army launched against our people on the 10the consecutive month,” the Islamist movement’s press office said.
For its part, the Israeli army said it had targeted near the school “a terrorist from the armed wing of Hamas” who had notably taken part in the attack of October 7 and “verified the information according to which civilians were hit” in this strike, the fourth to hit a school in as many days in the Gaza Strip.
Three other schools sheltering displaced people have been hit since Saturday by Israeli bombings that have left at least 20 dead according to Palestinian sources. In these three cases, the army said it had targeted “terrorists”, after accusing Hamas of “using residents as human shields”.
In the north of the territory, Israeli troops bombarded the city of Gaza by air and land, in a new major offensive against Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union and the United States.
It was the “most intense fighting in months,” said Hamas, which Israel vowed to destroy after the October 7 attack.
On June 27, the army launched a ground operation in Shujaiya, in eastern Gaza City, before extending it on Monday to the central neighborhoods, where “tens of thousands of people”, according to the UN, were called to evacuate by the army.
PHOTO OMAR AL-QATTAA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man walks past a burned building in the Tuffah district, east of Gaza City.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
On foot, in cars or in vans, Palestinians, mostly women and children, fled, taking a few belongings with them.
“We were moved to Daraj [quartier de Gaza]then to al-Shifa hospital, then to ministry headquarters, and now we have fled the al-Tuffah neighborhood [à Gaza] “Where are we supposed to go?” cried Umm Nimr al-Jamal. “We ran for our lives, taking nothing with us.”
PHOTO ABDEL KAREEM HANA, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians watch the aftermath of the Israeli attack on a UN-run school that killed dozens of people in the Nusseirat refugee camp on Thursday, June 6, 2024.
“We have about 350,000 people on the roads again. And since the beginning of the war, almost all the people in Gaza have been displaced once, twice, three times, four times or five times, which shows that there is absolutely no safe place” in the territory, said the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
“Famine Campaign”
In Geneva, ten independent UN experts accused Israel of waging a “starvation campaign” in Gaza, which they said was causing the deaths of children. “Israel’s intentional and targeted campaign of starvation against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine throughout the Gaza Strip.”
PHOTO NALINI LEPETIT-CHELLA, AFP
Distribution of the population of the Gaza Strip by level of food insecurity, according to IPC data published on June 25, 2024
Accusations dismissed by the Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva.
On October 7, Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel that killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 42 of whom are dead, according to the army.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed 38,243 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government.
“Destroyer of Lebanon”
After months of fruitless negotiations on a ceasefire, a source close to the discussions said the heads of the CIA and Israeli intelligence services were expected in Doha on Wednesday.
Israel and Hamas continued to report differences after the Palestinian movement said, according to an official, it was no longer demanding a permanent ceasefire before any negotiations on the release of hostages.
Hamas should participate in the upcoming negotiations, a senior member of the group said.
Israel says it will continue the war until Hamas is destroyed.
On Israel’s northern front, Israeli police announced the death of two people in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the target of rockets fired from Lebanon.
The exchange of fire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah has intensified in recent days.
“Nasrallah, if you do not stop the threats and violence […] “You will be considered the destroyer of Lebanon,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.