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Israeli forces bomb UNRWA school in Gaza, killing at least 15

Al-Akhbar | July 24, 2014

At least 15 people were killed, including a baby, when an Israeli tank shell slammed into a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, Gaza health ministry sources said.

The ministry also estimated that at least 200 people were wounded in the bombing.

A UN official confirmed “multiple dead and injured” at the school in Beit Hanoun, which was being used as a shelter by hundreds of Palestinians fleeing a major Israeli operation in the area.

“At 14:50, a shell landed in or near” an UNRWA school being used as a shelter, a UN official told AFP.

“People in the shelter were hurt,” he said, with a spokesman for Gaza’s emergency services reporting deaths.

The director of a local hospital said various medical centers around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.

“Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it,” said Ayman Hamdan, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said pools of blood had collected on the ground and on student desks in the courtyard of the school near the apparent impact mark of the shell.

Scores of crying families who had been living in the school ran with their children to the hospital where the victims were being treated a few hundred meters away.

Laila Al-Shinbari, a woman who was at school when it was shelled, told Reuters families had gathered in the courtyard expecting to be evacuated shortly in a Red Cross convoy.

“All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads … Bodies were on the ground, (there was) blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids,” she wept.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said that the UN agency had unsuccessfully tried to coordinate with Israeli forces prior to the attack to let civilians evacuate the school.

Israel has attacked at least three UNRWA schools in the past four days. UNRWA facilities have served as shelters for tens of thousands of Palestinians since the beginning of the offensive.

At least 76 Palestinians have been killed on Thursday, the 17th day of a deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. In total more than 770 Palestinians have been killed in Operation “Protective Edge.”

(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

July 24, 2014 - Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , ,

1 Comment »

  1. And the ‘israelis’ dance…

    Like

    Comment by Genie | July 24, 2014 | Reply


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