Israeli attack on a school kills more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza City

11:19 11.08.2024 •

Palestinians look at the damage at the site of a deadly Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.
Photo: Reuters

A deadly Israeli attack on a school in Gaza has renewed calls for the United States to stop providing staunch support for Israel, including weapons transfers that rights advocates say are fuelling atrocities in the Palestinian enclave, Al Jazeera reports.

The Gaza civil defence agency said more than 100 Palestinians were killed and dozens more were injured on Saturday when Israel launched an attack on al-Tabin school in Gaza City.

“The US & allies are claiming a ceasefire is near. But all Palestinians see is more death, dislocation, & despair. The genocide continues,” James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, wrote on social media.

On Saturday morning, CNN journalist Allegra Goodwin said in a post on X that the US news network had confirmed a “US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb” was used in the deadly Israeli attack on al-Tabin school. Al Jazeera could not immediately verify that report.

The attack comes as US President Joe Biden has faced months of public pressure to cut off the supply of weapons to Israel amid its war on Gaza, which has killed more than 39,700 Palestinians since early October.

Israel receives at least $3.8bn in US military assistance annually, and Biden signed off on $14bn in additional aid to the US ally earlier this year.

Rights groups also have documented Israel’s use of US-made weapons “in serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with US law and policy” during the war.

But a US Department of State spokesperson announced that Washington would send an additional $3.5bn to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment.

The Gaza City school attack was described by paramedics and others at the scene as horrific, with “bodies ripped to pieces”.

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said Palestinians sheltering inside the school compound were praying when Israeli forces targeted them with at least three air attacks.

“The civil defence team said that they were able to find 100 dead bodies, but they’re saying that there are more bodies still trapped. Most of the bodies are so disfigured, they’re unable to recognise who these Palestinians are,” Khoudary said.

“People who survived this attack are saying that this is one of the worst days they witnessed since the war started in the Gaza Strip.”

Israel has said, without any evidence, that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters were operating from the school – a claim that was rejected by Hamas.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged the US to end its “blind support [for Israel] that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly”.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement that US weapons transfers to Israel made it “directly responsible for this massacre [at al-Tabin school] and for the continuation of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip for the tenth month running”, as reported by the Wafa news agency.

 

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