Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation

Palestinians search in the rubble for survivors at the site of an Israeli strike in the Shejaiya suburb east of Gaza City on September 12, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 13 September 2024
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Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation

  • UN chief Antonio Guterres branded the strike “totally unacceptable”
  • EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “outraged” by the deaths

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel faced international condemnation Thursday after a strike killed 18 people at a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in war-torn Gaza, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
The attack flattened part of the UN-run Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat on Wednesday, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.
“For the fifth time, Israeli forces bombed the UNRWA-run Al-Jawni School, killing 18 citizens,” Gaza civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal wrote on Telegram, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA later said six of its staff had been killed in two Israeli strikes on the school and its surroundings, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
“Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” it said on X. “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.”
The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas militants within the school grounds. It did not elaborate on the outcome, but said “numerous steps” were taken to reduce the risk to civilians.
UN chief Antonio Guterres branded the strike “totally unacceptable.”
His condemnation was echoed by Israeli ally Germany, which said “humanitarian aid workers must never be victims of rockets.”
Jordan and the European Union also criticized the attack, while Israel’s main backer the United States called on it to protect humanitarian sites.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “outraged” by the deaths and that the strikes showed a “disregard of the basic principles” of international humanitarian law.
US Secretary of State Blinken said: “We need to see humanitarian sites protected, and that’s something that we continue to raise with Israel.”
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said UNRWA had not provided the names of its killed workers, “despite repeated requests.”
He said a military inquiry found that “a significant number of the names (of the dead) that have appeared in the media and on social networks are Hamas terrorist operatives.”
In response, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said the agency was “not aware of any such requests,” that it provided Israel each year with a list of its staff and that it “called repeatedly” on Israel and Palestinian militants “to never use civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes.”
She said the agency was “not in a position to determine” if the school had been used by Hamas for military purposes, but UNRWA had “repeatedly called for independent investigations” into “these very serious claims.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the school was “no longer a school” and had become “a legitimate target” as it was used by Hamas to launch attacks.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid into Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its 30,000 employees of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.
The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some “neutrality related issues” but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
Survivors of the strike scrambled to recover bodies and belongings from the rubble, saying they had to step over “shredded limbs.”
“I can hardly stand up,” a man holding a plastic bag of human remains told AFP.
“We’ve been going through hell for 340 days now, what we’ve seen over these days, we haven’t even seen it in Hollywood movies, now we’re seeing it in Gaza.”
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said after the school strike that at least 220 members of the agency’s staff had been killed in the war.
“Endless & senseless killing, day after day,” he posted on X.
“Humanitarian staff, premises & operations have been blatantly & unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war.”
Across Gaza, many school buildings have been repurposed to shelter displaced families, with the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people repeatedly uprooted by the war.
In Gaza City, civil defense spokesman Bassal said two strikes in the Zeitun neighborhood killed seven people — including two children.
Later, he said two people were killed in the Jabalia camp. Medical sources said five people were killed in strikes on the Khan Yunis area.
The bloodshed shows no signs of abating despite months of ceasefire negotiations mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
A Hamas delegation met Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha on Wednesday, the Palestinian Islamists said, though there was no indication of a breakthrough.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Among the dead included in that count were hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.


UN condemns Israel’s ‘unlawful air strike’ on West Bank camp which killed 18

Updated 56 min 40 sec ago
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UN condemns Israel’s ‘unlawful air strike’ on West Bank camp which killed 18

  • The Israeli army said the raid in Tulkarem had succeeded in killing “at least seven terrorists,” including a Hamas leader and an Islamic Jihad member
  • “The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF during military-like operations in the West Bank,” the UN rights office said

TULKAREM, Palestinian Territories: The United Nations on Friday condemned what it called an “unlawful air strike” by Israel on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian health ministry said killed 18 people the previous day.
Described as the deadliest air strike in over two decades in the West Bank, the Israeli army said the raid in Tulkarem had succeeded in killing “at least seven terrorists,” including a Hamas leader and an Islamic Jihad member, who were discussing an “imminent terror plan.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office slammed the strike, calling it “unlawful.”
“The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF (Israeli security forces) during military-like operations in the West Bank that have caused widespread harm to Palestinians,” the UN rights office said in a statement.
“The levelling of an entire building filled with people via aerial bombing shows flagrant disregard for Israel’s obligations.”
On Friday, hundreds gathered for a public funeral in Tulkarem, where the bodies of the dead were carried through the streets as people waved flags and fired guns into the air.
Several armed fighters, masked and dressed in black, attended the funeral, an AFP journalist reported.
“We hope that all Palestinian people will join hands, as we have one cause,” Nasser Kharyoush, a father of one of the victims of the raid, told AFP.
Tulkarem was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation in late August against militants based in the West Bank.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Since the Hamas attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 701 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian militant attacks during the same period, Israeli officials say.
The United Nations rights office said Thursday’s strike came when there were “no clashes or confrontations” at the site.
“The air strike completely destroyed the targeted building and also damaged nearby houses,” it said.
“More fatalities may be trapped under the rubble, but recovery and identification are proving difficult in light of the massive impact of the blast.”
Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring “at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said last month.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities.
But the current raids as well as comments by Israeli officials mark an escalation.


US, UK warplanes attack Houthi targets in Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah

Updated 04 October 2024
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US, UK warplanes attack Houthi targets in Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah

  • Strikes mostly on military bases, according to media reports
  • Militia supporters rally in Sanaa in show of solidarity with people of Palestine

AL-MUKALLA: American and British warplanes on Friday launched a series of strikes against Houthi targets in several Yemeni cities, the latest round of military operations against the militia in response to its attacks on ships.
The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV said the “aggression” planes conducted four strikes on Al-Thawra district in Sanaa, one south of the central city of Dhamar, and seven on Hodeida airport and the Al-Katheeb region in the western city of Hodeidah.
Photographs and videos posted on social media show large, thick balls of smoke billowing from locations in Sanaa and Hodeidah.
Local media said the airstrikes targeted the Houthi’s Al-Saeyanah base in Sanaa, Al-Katheeb naval base in Hodeidah and a military base in Dhamar.
The Aden Al-Ghad news site said three strikes were launched against positions in the Mukayras region of the central province of Al-Bayda, while residents in the southern province of Dhale reported seeing three missiles flying overhead in the direction of the Arabian Sea.
The attacks happened as thousands of Houthi supporters rallied in the streets of Sanaa and other areas to express solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon and opposition to Israel’s war, and to condemn Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Houthi government spokesperson Hashem Sharaf Al-Din condemned the airstrikes, describing them as a “desperate attempt” by the US and UK to pressure the militia into ending its attacks on ships and missile and drone attacks against Israel in support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since January, the US and UK militaries have launched repeated strikes on Sanaa, Hodeidah, Taiz and other Yemeni areas held by the Houthis, targeting drone and missile launchers, storage facilities and ammunition depots.
The latest followed a spate of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea over the past week.
On Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck ports, power stations and fuel tanks in Hodeidah after the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel on Saturday.


Erdogan lashes out at Israel for attack on UN chief

Updated 04 October 2024
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Erdogan lashes out at Israel for attack on UN chief

  • Israel “is shamelessly challenging UN Secretary-General Guterres,” Erdogan said
  • “196 countries in the world will stand by the UN secretary-general” against Israel

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused Israel of “shamelessly” attacking UN chief Antonio Guterres by declaring him “persona non grata” for not quickly condemning Iran’s ballistic missile barrage.
Israel “is shamelessly challenging UN Secretary-General Guterres,” Erdogan told an audience at a defense technology fair in the southern province of Adana.
He added that “196 countries in the world will stand by the UN secretary-general” against Israel.
Relations between the UN and Israel have been difficult since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
On Wednesday, Guterres was declared persona non grata by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, accusing him of failing to specifically condemn Iran’s missile attack on the country this week. Katz called Guterres an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists, rapists, and murderers.”
“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” Katz said in a statement.
Guterres pointedly condemned Iran’s attack at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
The Security Council on Thursday offered its full support to Guterres.
Without naming Israel, the council’s five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and 10 non-permanent members “underscored the need for all member states to have a productive and effective relationship with the secretary-general.”


US arranges flights to bring Americans out of Lebanon as others seek escape

Updated 04 October 2024
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US arranges flights to bring Americans out of Lebanon as others seek escape

  • Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, are calling on the US to start an evacuation
  • Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said: “The US military is, of course, on the ready and has a whole wide range of plans”

WASHINGTON: US-arranged flights have brought about 350 Americans and their immediate relatives out of Lebanon this week during escalated fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, while thousands of others still there face airstrikes and diminishing commercial flights.
In Washington, senior State Department and White House officials met Thursday with two top Arab American officials to discuss US efforts to help American citizens leave Lebanon. The two leaders also separately met with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
Michigan state Rep. Alabas Farhat and Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, used the White House meeting to “really drive home a lot of important points about the issues our community members are facing on the ground and a lot of the logistical problems that they’re encountering with it when it comes to this evacuation,” Ayoub said.
Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, are calling on the US to start an evacuation. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that was not being considered right now.
“The US military is, of course, on the ready and has a whole wide range of plans. Should we need to evacuate American citizens out of Lebanon, we absolutely can,” Singh told reporters.
Israel has opened a pounding air campaign deep into Lebanon and a ground incursion in the country’s south targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Iran on Tuesday fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel, leaving the region bracing for any Israeli retaliation and fearing an all-out regional war.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the war in Gaza.
Other countries, from Greece to the United Kingdom, Japan and Colombia, have arranged flights or sent military planes to ferry out their citizens.
As Israeli bombardments targeting senior Hezbollah leaders shook southern neighborhoods in Lebanon’s capital last week, “We could still see, hear and feel everything” despite fleeing to the mountains outside Beirut, said Nicolette Hutcherson, a longtime humanitarian volunteer living in Lebanon with her husband and three children.
The only seats Hutcherson’s family could find on commercial carriers were for flights weeks away and for thousands of dollars, she said. Ultimately, Hutcherson and her young children joined crowds heading to Lebanon’s Mediterranean marinas, finding spots on pleasure boats turned evacuation ships for the nine-hour ride to Cyprus.
Her husband was able to find a single seat out on a plane days later to join them.
Another American family was mourning Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a resident of metro Detroit’s Dearborn area, who was killed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Family members said he stayed to help civilians too old, infirm or poor to flee.
He had been on the phone with his daughter Tuesday when the impact of a strike knocked him off his feet, his daughter, Nadine Kamel Jawad, said in a statement.
“He simply got up, found his phone, and told me he needed to finish praying in case another strike hit him,” she said.
The State Department has been telling Americans for almost a year not to travel to Lebanon and advising them to leave the country on commercial flights for months. It also has made clear that government-run evacuations are rare, while offering emergency loans to aid travel out of Lebanon.
Some Americans said relatives who are US citizens or green-card holders have been struggling for days or weeks to get seats on flights out of Lebanon. Limits on withdrawing money from banks due to Lebanon’s longstanding economic collapse and intermittent electricity and Internet have made it difficult, they said.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid, a lawyer based in Washington, paid $5,000 to get a female relative on the last seat of a flight out of Beirut on Saturday.
“She was on her way to the airport” when Israeli began one of its first days of intensified bombing, Abou-Chedid said.
By Thursday, some Americans said their loved ones had been able to secure tickets for upcoming flights and were hopeful.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US would continue to organize flights as long the security situation in Lebanon is dire and there is demand.
Miller said Lebanon’s flag carrier, Middle East Airlines, also had set aside about 1,400 seats on flights for Americans over the past week. Several hundred had taken them, he said.
Miller could not speak to the cost of the airline’s flights, over which the US government has no regulatory oversight, but said the maximum fare that would be charged for a US-organized contract flight would be $283 per person.
More than 6,000 American citizens have contacted the US Embassy in Beirut seeking information about departing the country over the past week.
Not all of those have actually sought assistance in leaving, and Miller said the department understood that some Americans, many of them dual US-Lebanese nationals and longtime residents of the country, may choose to stay.
Miller said the embassy is prepared to offer temporary loans to Americans who choose to remain in Lebanon but want to relocate to a potentially safer area of the country. The embassy also would provide emergency loans to Americans who wish to leave on the US-contracted flights.


Israeli bombardment kills 29 people in Gaza, militants renew rocket fire into Israel

Updated 04 October 2024
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Israeli bombardment kills 29 people in Gaza, militants renew rocket fire into Israel

  • The new rocket salvoes indicated that Hamas-led militant factions in Gaza are still able to fire projectiles into Israel

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 29 Palestinians on Friday, medics said, and sirens blared in southern Israel in response to renewed rocket fire from militants in the Palestinian enclave.
The new rocket salvoes indicated that Hamas-led militant factions in Gaza are still able to fire projectiles into Israel despite a year-long Israeli aerial and ground offensive that has turned wide areas of the enclave into wasteland.
On Friday, the Israeli military said sirens sounded in southern Israel for the first time in around two months.
“Almost a year after Oct. 7, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them,” it added, referring to the anniversary of Hamas’ cross-border attack that touched off the Gaza war.