On Wednesday, September 12, as a result of an attack on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, located in the central part of the Gaza Strip, 18 people were killed, including six employees of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Liter.kz reports with reference to Al Jazeera.
It was the fifth airstrike on the same school in the Nuseirat camp since the war began. The building had been used as a refuge for thousands of Palestinians forced to flee their homes.
“The strike targeted the Al-Jauni school in Nuseirat camp. Among the dead were women and children who had taken refuge in the school. Six UNRWA staff members, including the head of the shelter and other members of the team assisting the displaced, were also confirmed dead,” the source said.
UNRWA said it was the highest number of casualties among its staff in a single incident since the conflict began, now 11 months old.
According to the agency, the school has been hit five times since the war began. At the time of the tragedy, there were about 12,000 displaced persons in the building, most of whom were women and children.
UNRWA called on all parties to the conflict not to use schools and their surrounding areas for military purposes. The statement stressed that civilian infrastructure, including schools, must be protected and cannot be targeted.
“No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared,” the agency said on social media. X.
The IDF, however, claims that the target of the strike was Hamas militants who had set up a command center on the school grounds and were planning attacks from there. The army stressed that measures had been taken to protect civilians.
The Israeli military has also accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, which Hamas officials deny.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks on the school, calling them a serious violation of international humanitarian law, and demanded an immediate end to such actions.
“What is happening in Gaza is absolutely unacceptable,” wrote He is on social media.
The conflict in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory actions resulted in the deaths of more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
On August 28, it became known that negotiations between representatives of the Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel in Cairo ended without reaching an agreement on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military reported massive shelling of the northern regions of the country, carried out from the territory of Lebanon.
In September, Israeli forces attacked a number of military targets in central Syria, killing at least 14 people.
On September 10, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian zone in Gaza, killing dozens of people.
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2024-09-12 15:02:42