The Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, announced Thursday, June 6, a new toll of thirty-seven dead in the nighttime Israeli strike which targeted the Al-Sardi school, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known by the acronym UNRWA.
The school, located in Nousseirat, a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, housed Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombings in northern Gaza. According to local health officials, twenty-three women and children were among the victims.
“Army fighter jets (…) carried out a precise strike on a Hamas base located inside an UNRWA school in the Nousseirat region” (center), the Israeli army wrote in a statement on Thursday, claiming to have eliminated in this attack “several terrorists” having taken part, according to her, in the attack of October 7.
According to the Israeli army, Hamas had integrated a ” complex “ inside the school – which Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants used as a shelter – where they planned attacks on Israeli troops. The Israeli military, which could not immediately provide evidence, said it took measures before the strike “to reduce the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians…including by conducting aerial surveillance and obtaining additional intelligence.”
Hamas condemned a “continuing war of extermination and ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinian people.
“Another UNRWA school transformed into a shelter was attacked, this time in Nousseirat”in the center of the Gaza Strip, written on Philippe Lazzarini. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees added that Israeli forces had given no “prior warning, neither to displaced persons nor to UNRWA”specifying that the UN agency had transmitted the coordinates of this school to the Israeli army.
“Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes represents a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law”, again denounces Mr. Lazzarini. Since the start of the war, “more than 180 UNRWA structures have been affected” which led to the death of “more than 450 people displaced”according to the head of the UN agency.
For the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem, this strike “potentially constitutes a war crime”. “As this war has demonstrated from the beginning, civilian deaths are the inevitable result of the character of the Israeli military’s activities in the Gaza Strip.”continues this organization, urging the international community to put an end to hostilities.
This establishment – where, according to Mr. Lazzarini, there were 6,000 displaced people –, like many UNRWA buildings in Gaza, was transformed into a shelter for the civilian population displaced by the fighting. According to Agence France-Presse, men were inspecting the damage caused by the strike on Thursday morning.
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According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), at least 70 bodies and 300 wounded, mostly women and children, were transported Tuesday and Wednesday to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, after the latest wave of Israeli strikes.
The international charity added, in a post on X, that the hospital is struggling to treat “an influx of patients, many arriving with severe burns, shrapnel, broken bones and other traumatic injuries.”
“The smell of blood in the emergency room this morning was unbearable. There are people lying everywhere, on the ground, outside”, declared on X, Karin HusterMSF coordinator for Gaza.