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Israel Kills 11 in Bombing of Gaza Shelter as Urgent Polio Vaccination Effort Begins
"We cannot vaccinate children and families who have to flee for safety," said a spokesperson for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Sep 02, 2024
The Israeli military killed nearly a dozen people Sunday in its latest bombing of a school-turned-shelter in the Gaza Strip, an attack that came amid limited pauses aimed at allowing relief workers to vaccinate Palestinian children against reemergent polio.
Israel's strike on the Safad school in Gaza City killed at least 11 people, including a woman and a girl, a spokesperson for Gaza's civil defense agency toldAgence France-Presse.
The Israeli military claimed it was targeting a "Hamas command center" inside the school, which—like other Gaza schools that remain standing—was being used as a shelter for people displaced by Israel's nearly 11-month assault.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Monday that Israeli bombing has damaged or destroyed more than 70% of the schools it runs in the enclave.
"The vast majority of our schools are now overcrowded shelters with hundreds of thousands of displaced families. They cannot be used for learning," Lazzarini continued. "With no cease-fire, children are likely to fall prey to exploitation including child labor and recruitment into armed groups. We have seen this way too often in conflicts around the world, let’s not repeat it in Gaza."
"A cease-fire is a win for all: it will allow respite for civilians, the release of the hostages, and a flow of much-needed basic supplies including for learning," he added.
A school shelter in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli military air strike as a ‘pause’ in attacks began in other areas in Gaza under an agreement to allow a polio vaccination campaign. pic.twitter.com/Brl4ubHkjC
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 2, 2024
The deadly attack came at the start of three days of localized humanitarian pauses to allow U.N. aid workers to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio amid growing fears of a mass outbreak of the infectious disease that has no known cure.
Last month, Gaza health officials detected the first polio case in more than two decades, heightening the urgency of a large-scale vaccination campaign—an effort made highly difficult by the Israeli military's relentless bombing and destruction of Gaza's healthcare infrastructure.
UNRWA said early Monday that its teams were able to vaccinate roughly 87,000 children on the first day of negotiated pauses even as Israeli airstrikes continued across the besieged enclave.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement Sunday that "Israeli aircraft and tanks continue to bomb the central Gaza Strip, the area where the polio vaccination campaign has begun."
"Along with the ongoing shelling in various parts of the strip, these Israeli military attacks have coincided with the peak of families' movement with their children towards the designated vaccination centers," the group said. "Some of these attacks have even targeted locations near the vaccination centers, endangering the progress of the vaccination process that is required to stop the poliovirus from spreading among Palestinian children in the besieged enclave."
Louise Wateridge, a senior communications officer for UNRWA, told the BBC on Monday morning that "we cannot vaccinate children who are fearing for their lives."
"We cannot vaccinate children and families who have to flee for safety," said Wateridge as explosions rang out in the background. "We need these children to be able to come to the vaccination centers and receive these vaccines safely. And that's not possible when there's fighting like there is now."
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'Beyond Horror': Israel Kills Mostly Children in Fresh Attacks on Gaza Schools
"Remember that each one of those numbers is one person, a child who has been forever changed by what's happened."
Aug 05, 2024
Israeli forces killed dozens of displaced Palestinians—mostly children—on Sunday with attacks on a pair of United Nations-run schools in the Gaza Strip as diplomats in the region worked to prevent all-out war from breaking out in the aftermath of Israel's latest assassination spree.
Al Jazeerareported that 80% of the roughly 30 people killed in the Israeli attacks on two schools in Gaza City were children. The strikes came shortly after Israel's military bombed a hospital complex in central Gaza, killing at least five people.
"This is beyond horror now," David Shoebridge, an Australian senator, wrote in response to the attacks on schools-turned-shelters.
Tareq Abu Azzoum of Al Jazeeranoted that rescue teams were still searching the rubble of the two schools for survivors on Monday.
"At least 16 Palestinians are still missing, including children, under the remnants of these areas that were targeted by Israel without any prior warning," Azzoum wrote. "Civil defense crews have been using only their bare hands in order to look for survivors. They have been saying that sometimes the process for recovering and pulling out victims can take days simply because there isn't enough fuel to operate the vast majority of bulldozers, and due to the Israeli attacks on bulldozers at the municipal facilities, used in the initial months of the war to rescue victims."
🚑Palestine Red Crescent teams transported several martyrs and injured individuals following the Israeli occupation’s airstrikes on the Al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools in northwest #Gaza City.
📷Footage by volunteer Yousef Khader. pic.twitter.com/eZMKHnqNVP
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) August 4, 2024
Israel's monthslong war on the Gaza Strip has devastated the territory's children, killing more than 14,000, wounding more than 12,000, and leaving over 20,000 missing. The physical toll has been compounded by what one Gaza mother recently described as the "complete psychological destruction" of the enclave's youth.
Becky Platt, a British pediatric nurse who recently returned from Gaza after a stint at a field hospital there, wrote Monday that "the psychological distress that I witnessed among children and young people is like nothing I'd ever seen before."
"It's very easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers when we watch the news or read about what's happening in Gaza," Platt continued. "Remember that each one of those numbers is one person, a child who has been forever changed by what's happened. Then multiply that one child by thousands. That's the work that needs to be done."
Israel's attacks came after a round of cease-fire talks in Cairo concluded without a deal to end the assault on Gaza. Critics, including some Israeli officials, believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is actively sabotaging cease-fire talks in a bid to remain in power.
Axiosreported Sunday that "Israeli officials and families of hostages are concerned Netanyahu, who recently toughened his demands and presented new conditions for a hostage and cease-fire deal, sent the delegation [to Cairo] only to create an appearance of negotiations to relieve some of the pressure from" U.S. President Joe Biden, who has called for a cease-fire while continuing to provide military support for the war on Gaza.
"Hamas rejected Netanyahu's new conditions, which include forming an international mechanism to prevent weapons transfers from southern Gaza to the north," according to Axios. "Israeli officials say this and other new demands are making a deal impossible."
Meanwhile, diplomats are trying to prevent the region from descending into full-scale military conflict following Israel's assassination of a Hezbollah commander and Hamas' political leader.
Iran's supreme leader has reportedly ordered an attack on Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told G7 nations on Sunday that Iran's military response could begin as soon as Monday.
Late last week, the Pentagon announced it would "deploy additional fighter jets and Navy warships to the Middle East" as lawmakers and anti-war campaigners warned of deepening U.S. involvement in the regional war.
"Americans do not want to fight another war in the Middle East," Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said last week, "and the path out of the unimaginable death and destruction in Gaza that threatens to engulf the region is through a cease-fire."
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'Horrific Massacre': Israel Bombs Gaza School Used as Refugee Camp, Killing Dozens
"Schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery," said UNRWA's commissioner-general.
Jul 10, 2024
Israeli forces killed dozens of people Tuesday in an airstrike on a school-turned-refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the fourth school Israel's military has bombed in as many days as the country continues its massive assault on the enclave's starving population.
At least 29 people were killed and dozens more were wounded in Tuesday's attack, including women and children—who have made up roughly two-thirds of those killed in Israel's latest assault on Gaza, which began following a Hamas-led attack in October. The death toll from Tuesday's attack is expected to rise, as many of those injured were reportedly in critical condition and taken to the under-resourced and overwhelmed Nasser Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged carrying out the airstrike—which hit the entrance of the school—but claimed to be targeting a Hamas militant "adjacent" to the complex. The IDF, whose internal investigations rarely result in accountability for atrocities, said the "incident is under review."
Video footage posted to social media shows displaced Palestinians playing in the schoolyard when the airstrike hit, sparking panic and chaos.
(Warning: The footage is graphic.)
🚨HORRIBLE: Footage shows the final moments of displaced people at Abasan School in eastern Khan Younis/south #Gaza Strip , playing football in the schoolyard before the Israeli army bombed them, resulting in a horrific massacre that killed dozens and injured hundreds. pic.twitter.com/tyXN2hJI48
— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) July 9, 2024
Citing witnesses, the BBCreported that "the area was teeming with displaced people at the time" of the airstrike, which "resulted in widespread destruction and the deaths of women and children."
"Body parts were scattered across the site and many people staying in tents outside the school were also injured," the British outlet reported. "Ayman Al-Dahma, 21, told the BBC there had been as many as 3,000 people packed into the area at the time, which he said housed a market and residential buildings. Describing the number of casualties as 'unimaginable,' he said he had seen people whose limbs had been severed by the blast."
Tuesday's attack marked the fourth time in four days that the IDF has attacked a school in the Gaza Strip, according to Agence France-Presse. Over the weekend, Israeli forces killed more than a dozen Palestinians in an attack on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza.
Most of Gaza's education infrastructure has been damaged or completely destroyed by Israeli forces, and the schools still standing are being used to shelter those displaced by the IDF assault, which is now in its 10th month. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Gaza's population has been internally displaced since October, with some displaced up to 10 times.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East called the IDF's latest attack "a horrific massacre," adding, "Annihilation is the point."
"Nothing can justify Canada's failure to act," the group wrote on social media.
Canada is one of a number of major countries that have supplied weaponry to the Israeli government as it has carried out its utter devastation of the Gaza Strip, nearly all of which is now uninhabitable.
The United States and Germany together provided 99% of the arms Israel imported last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Germany's Foreign Office called Wednesday's attack "unacceptable" and demanded a swift investigation.
"People seeking shelter in schools getting killed is unacceptable. Civilians, especially children, must not get caught in the crossfire," the foreign office said. "The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop."
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Wednesday that "schools have gone from safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often ending up a place of death and misery."
"Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction, and despair continue. Gaza is no place for children," he added. "The blatant disregard of international humanitarian law cannot become the new normal... Cease-fire now before we lose what is left of our common humanity."
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