UN Chief Condemns Israel For Attacking School; Military Says It Targeted Hamas (Worthy News Focus)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – The U.N. secretary-general has condemned Israel for attacking a school in central Gaza that killed “at least 18 people,” including staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Antonio Guterres said that six UNRWA staff members, as well as children and women, were among the dead after the September 11 “Israeli airstrikes” hit a school serving as a shelter in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
“A school turned shelter for around 12,000 people was hit by Israeli airstrikes again today. Six of our UNRWA colleagues are among those killed. These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now,” he said in a statement monitored by Worthy News.
The attack raised the number of UNRWA staff killed in the armed conflict to 220, according to U.N. estimates.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) countered that the military targeted a command-and-control center in the compound.
The IDF says it is taking steps to reduce the risk of harm to non-combatants in Gaza while battling “Hamas terrorists” who use Palestinian civilians as human shields.
However, Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the September 11 “incident must be independently and thoroughly investigated to ensure accountability. ”
EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
“The continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza is unconscionable. Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on must be protected, and the essential needs of civilians met,” he added.
“The [U.N.] secretary-general calls upon all parties to refrain from using schools, shelters, or the areas around them for military purposes. All parties to the conflict have the obligation to comply with international humanitarian law at all times,” Dujarric stressed without mentioning Hamas by name.
Hamas denies using civilians as human shields, shrugging off evidence it placed its forces and weapons near or in civilian structures such as hospitals, schools, or churches.
Following the strike on the school, several other Palestinians reportedly died in Israeli strikes on Gaza City and Khan Younis on Friday, while earlier since Wednesday, at least 19 died in assaults throughout the enclave, said Hamas-backed sources and media.
It was not clear whether the reported death toll at the school had been counted among these mentioned figures.
U.N. chief Guterres urged the United States in an interview with broadcaster Al Jazeera to pressure Israel to end its “devastating war” on Gaza. However, “I know the American political life sufficiently to know that will not happen.”
His comments came while foreign ministers from several Muslim and European countries urged the international community to take “active steps” to implement “the two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including through the universal recognition of the State of Palestine.
FREE REIGN
Israel’s government says that would give Hamas and its allies free reign to attack Israel as they seek the destruction of the Jewish nation.
Yet, despite the war, the first phase of a U.N.-led polio vaccination drive officially ended with about 560,000 children receiving their first dose in 12 days, U.N. officials said.
The World Health Organization, the U.N.’s children’s organization UNICEF, and UNRWA called for another round of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza, fighting for the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign to proceed.
The Gaza war was triggered on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to estimates by the Hamas-run health ministry. Yet Israel has questioned those figures and says nearly half of those killed are Hamas combatants.
Separately, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s body arrived in Turkey’s western Aydin province as the family of the slain American-Turkish activist prepared for her funeral and burial on Saturday.
Israel’s military said it was “highly likely” that Eygi, 26, was killed by Israeli fire “indirectly and unintentionally” last week in the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria, the other Palestinian enclave. However, the Palestinian Authority said autopsy by experts revealed that she had been targeted directly by Israeli forces.
Tensions have risen in the area between Palestinians and Jewish settlers amid mounting fears the Gaza war will turn into a broader regional armed conflict.
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