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Israel kills 20 in sixth UNRWA school bombing

Al-Akhbar | July 30, 2014

Updated at 2:41 pm: Israeli bombardments early on Wednesday killed more than 68 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 20 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israeli assault on the besieged enclave.

The deaths brought the Palestinian toll to more than 1,297, according to Gaza’s emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra’s latest figures. Qudra added that 180 Palestinians were injured on Wednesday, raising the total number of wounded to 7,200.

A shelling shortly after 5:30 am killed some 20 people at the UN school being used as a shelter for those displaced by the war, Qudra said.

An AFP correspondent said that at least one shell had hit the school – the outer wall of the complex was damaged by shellfire. The correspondent said the army had been pounding the area with tank fire for an hour prior to the incident.

Blood splattered floors and mattresses inside classrooms, and some survivors picked through shattered glass and debris for flesh and body parts to bury.

At the edge of the schoolyard, some 20 donkeys lay dead, still tied to a railing.

Displaced Palestinians who had already had to leave their homes quickly gathered belongings and fled the building.

Khalil al-Halabi, director of UNRWA’s northern Gaza operations, said some 3,000 Palestinians were taking refuge in the school, in Jabalia refugee camp, when it came under fire around dawn.

“There were five shells – Israeli tank shells – which struck the people and killed many of them as they slept. Those people came to the school because it is a designated UN shelter,” he said.

Five of the wounded were in critical condition, Halabi said. It was the second time in a week that a UN school sheltering hundreds of homeless Palestinians had been hit.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces,” said UNRWA commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl, saying the school’s location had been communicated to the Israeli army 17 times.

“This is the sixth time that one of our schools has been struck,” he said, indicating some 3,300 people had been sheltering in the school when it was hit.

Abdel-Karim al-Masamha, 27, said he and his family had come to the school after fleeing fighting near their home in the northern Gaza Strip.

“We did not find safety here,” he said. “People were martyred before our eyes. They were dismembered.”

A shelling earlier in the northern Gaza Strip killed an 11-year-old handicapped girl, Qudra said, with a subsequent shelling in the center of the small coastal territory killing a 16-year-old girl.

Five members of the same family in Jabalia were killed in a strike, Gaza officials said.

A strike shortly afterwards in the southern city of Khan Younis killed 10 members of a single family, Qudra said, including one child who could not immediately be identified.

According to Qudra, the victims were all from the Abu Amer family.

A middle-aged man was killed early in the morning in the southern city of Rafah.

Three children were among six people killed in an Israeli tank shelling on Gaza City on Wednesday, medics said.

The attack took place in Tuffah neighborhood in the northeastern part of the city, killing six members of the Al-Khalili family, Qudra said.

Rights groups have expressed alarm at the number of children victims.

The more than 240 Palestinian children who have died represent at least 29 percent of civilian casualties, the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said in a statement, adding that another six children in Israel had been wounded from Gaza rocket fire.

“We see children killed, injured, mutilated and burnt, in addition to being terrified to their core. The consequences run much deeper than previous flare-ups” in Gaza, UNICEF’s Gaza field office chief Pernille Ironside said.

UNRWA, the main UN relief agency in Gaza, said it was at “breaking point” with an estimated 240,000 Palestinians having taken shelter in 85 of its schools and buildings following calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods before military operations.

On the Israeli side, militant fire, including cross-border rocket fire, has killed 53 Israeli soldiers in addition to two Israeli civilians and a Thai laborer. … Full article

July 30, 2014 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism