Israel crosses all limits of terrorism, massacres refugees at point-blank in Gaza school
GAZA, Palestine (AFP) - Israel bombed Gaza on Thursday as a top White House advisor was due to arrive in Jerusalem with a rift growing over US calls for its ally to exercise restraint.
The war, now in its third month, began after the October 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas that Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. It has left besieged Gaza in ruins and killed more than 18,787 people, mostly women and children, and 50,897 injured according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The ministry said Israeli air strikes early Thursday had martyred at least 19 people across the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces carried out an execution-style killing of many Palestinians, including women, children, and infants, who had sought refuge inside the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in northern Gaza, witnesses said. The incident occurred in the Al Falujjah area, west of Jabalia refugee camp.
Disturbing footage obtained by Al Jazeera reportedly shows bodies, including those of newborns, piled up inside the school. “The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire on them,” a woman at the scene said. “They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her.”
The woman said there were newborn children among them. “The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families at point blank,” she added. In the West Bank, which has also seen a surge in violence since October 7, the Palestinian Authority said two people were killed in Israeli strikes in the city of Jenin.
On Thursday, Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was due to arrive in Jerusalem for talks with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. Sullivan told a Wall Street Journal event ahead of his trip he would discuss a timetable to end the war and urge Israeli leaders "to move to a different phase from the kind of high-intensity operations that we see today".
Sullivan will have "extremely serious conversations" in Israel, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. Netanyahu has said there is also "disagreement" with Washington over how a post-conflict Gaza would be governed.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday "any arrangement in Gaza or in the Palestinian cause without Hamas or the resistance factions is a delusion". He said Hamas was ready for talks that could lead to a "political path that secures the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital". A poll published on Wednesday by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed Haniyeh had the support of 78 percent of people in the Palestinian territories, compared with 58 percent before the war.
'Darkest chapter'
International pressure is mounting on Israel to better protect civilians, with the UN General Assembly this week overwhelmingly backing a non-binding resolution for a ceasefire. While Washington voted against, the resolution was supported by allies Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who, in a rare joint statement, said they were "alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza".
Wintry rain lashed the territory, where the UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million population have been displaced, living in makeshift tents as supplies of food, drinking water, medicines and fuel run low. Ameen Edwan said his family was camped out with thousands in the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza.
"Rainwater seeped in. We couldn't sleep. We tried to find nylon covers but couldn't find any, so we resorted to stones and sand" to keep the water out, he said. The southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border has become a vast camp for the displaced, with hundreds of tents erected using wood and plastic sheets.
"We spent five days outdoors. And now the rain has flooded the tents," said a displaced resident, Bilal al-Qassas. Gusts of wind shook the fragile structures, while people tried to reinforce them with more plastic sheeting. "Where do we migrate to? Our dignity is gone. Where do women relieve themselves? There are no bathrooms," said 41-year-old Qassas. The UN warned the spread of diseases -- including meningitis, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections -- had intensified.
Gaza's hospital system is in ruins, and Hamas authorities said vaccines for children had run out, warning of "catastrophic health repercussions". The Hamas-controlled health ministry said Israeli forces opened fire on wards of Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza. The army has yet to comment, but Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals, schools, mosques and vast tunnel systems beneath them as military bases -- charges it denies.
