Author: Nidal Mugrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – An Israeli airstrike on a school compound housing displaced Palestinian families in Gaza city killed about 100 people, Gaza’s civil emergency services said on Saturday, while Israel said the death toll was exaggerated. , 19 militants were among the dead.
Video from the scene showed body parts scattered among the rubble and more bodies being carried away and covered with blankets. Empty food cans lay in pools of blood, and burned mattresses and a child’s doll lay among the rubble.
In another video, people pray over a dozen body bags placed on the ground of the Tabin school building.
Israel’s attack drew condemnation from Arab countries, Turkey, France, the United Kingdom and the European Union, and caused deep concern in the United States.
“Once again, too many civilians have been killed,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said at a campaign event in Phoenix when asked about her reaction to the Gaza City attack.
Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate running in November, reiterated the U.S. call, telling reporters: “We need a hostage deal and a ceasefire.”
Gaza’s civilian emergency services have a reliable record of publishing casualty figures, while the Hamas-run government media office said in a separate statement that the complex was attacked as its occupants were conducting dawn prayers.
“So far, there have been more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are also unidentified remains,” Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bashar told a televised news conference.
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in Gaza’s schools, most of which have been closed since Israel’s war against Hamas began.
Bashar said about 350 families have taken refuge in the compound, some of them displaced by Israeli attacks on Gaza.
He said the upper floor, where residents live, and the lower floor, used as a mosque, were both hit.
The Israeli military said the death toll was exaggerated.
“Three precision munitions were used in this attack and would not have caused the extent of damage reported,” the military said in a statement.
It added that there was no serious damage to the building and provided aerial photos and videos to prove this.
The compound and the attacked mosque in it are active military installations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on X, without providing evidence.
An Israeli military official said the part of the mosque that was attacked was reserved for men.
Israel says Palestinian militants have mingled with civilians in Gaza and are operating in schools, hospitals and designated humanitarian zones, but Hamas and its allies deny this.
Hamas said the attack was a horrific crime and a serious escalation. Izat Resik of Hamas’s political office said there were no combatants among the dead.
Another attack on Saturday killed three Palestinians in Nuseirat, central Gaza, and another in nearby Deir al-Balah killed one person, medics said.
Later in the day, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, medics said.
Separately, the Israeli military said Walid al-Soussi, the general security chief of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in southern Gaza. Hamas had no immediate comment.
New round of ceasefire negotiations
U.S. President Joe Biden has urged Iran not to attack Israel amid heightened tensions in the region following the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran, which supports Hamas, blamed Israel and vowed to “punish” Israel. Israel has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
On Saturday, Biden uttered the word “no” when a reporter asked him for information on Iran.
Lebanese Hezbollah militant group backed by Iran said it launched drone attacks on military positions in northern Israel. The Israeli military said it reported unspecified damage but no casualties and struck several Hezbollah military buildings in southern Lebanon.
The White House said it was “deeply concerned” about the strike at the Gaza school compound and asked Israeli officials to provide more details.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told X he was shocked by the school photos.
Nabil Abu Rudeneh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urged Israel’s ally Washington to end “blind support that has led to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women and the elderly”.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group was working on a new ceasefire proposal for discussion, without elaborating.
Khalil Haya, head of the indirect ceasefire negotiation team between Hamas and Israel, told Al Jazeera that statements of condemnation were no longer enough.
“Fire the (Israeli) ambassador, close the embassy and sever ties with the occupation,” he said.
Egypt, the United States and Qatar are due to hold a new round of ceasefire talks on Thursday amid growing concerns about a wider conflict between Iran and Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not end the war until Hamas no longer posed a threat to Israelis and said he would send a delegation.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezarel Smotrich on Friday dismissed the White House accusations, saying he was “totally wrong” in claiming that a ceasefire on the table would mean surrender to Hamas.
Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, posted on X thanking the United States for its support for Israel, but insisted that the United States “will not succumb to any external pressure that harms Israel’s security.”
Israel launched its attack on Gaza after Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
Gaza health officials said most of the dead were civilians, but Israel said at least a third were militants. Israel said it lost 329 soldiers in Gaza.
