After killing 23 women and 5 children, Israel not aware of civilian casualties in strike on school

AP , Ahram Online , Thursday 6 Jun 2024

Israel’s military said Thursday it was not aware of any civilian casualties in a strike that killed at least 37 Palestinians, including 23 women and 5 children, according to local officials and an AP reporter at the hospital that received the bodies.

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in an Israeli bombardment of UNRWA school at Nusseirat refugee camp, in front of the morgue of al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip. AP

“I’m not aware of civilians being caught up in this. We will be looking at the data and intelligence that comes out in the next few hours or day,” Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told journalists.

He declined to say whether the military would investigate the strike, as it did in May when an Israeli strike near a tent camp sheltering displaced people killed dozens in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

The strike occurred early Thursday at a UNRWA school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Nusseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Israeli warplanes conducting the strike targeted the upper floors of the school at night as the refugees slept, according to WAFA.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah received at least 37 bodies from the strike on the school run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, updating an earlier figure of 27 given by the government media office.

Additionally, records from the hospital and observations from an Associated Press reporter confirm that another six bodies from a separate strike on a home were also transported to the hospital.

Israel has intensified its attacks on the central Gaza Strip targeting refugee camps and UNRWA facilities housing displaced people.

Occupation artillery violently shelled the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, as warplanes launched strikes in the vicinity of the camp, while the Al-Maghazi refugee camp was also shelled by Israeli artillery.

This comes after the Israeli occupation army began a ground military invasion yesterday, on Wednesday, in the central Gaza Strip, according to the German News Agency.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army announced its ground forces had begun a delicate operation in the Bureij refugee camp.

The raids coincided with ground forces carrying out a precise operation under intelligence guidance in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip, the occupation army's spokesman said in a statement on his account on the “X” platform.

Since 7 October, Israel has been waging a large-scale war on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 36,586 Palestinians, mostly women and children.