Palestinian carries a wounded girl injured from an Israeli strike in Shijaiyah neighbourhood, into the emergency room at Gaza City’s Shifa hospital. Photo: AP
Jabalia, Gaza: Four donkeys lay dead at the gate of the Jabalia Elementary Girls School in Gaza, the first indication of the bloody human toll inside.
Three heavy artillery shells hit the United Nations school in the early hours of Wednesday, killing 19 and wounding at least 100. The shelling came despite 17 warnings about the position of the shelter to the Israel Defence Force, according to officials in United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
More than 3300 Palestinian families were sheltering in the school after fleeing from Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
Bloodied pillows and blankets – shredded to pieces – were scattered over the school’s courtyard as shocked and traumatised families displaced from their homes and living in overcrowded conditions, waited to hear the fate of those injured.
“We came here because we thought it was safe,” said Amna Zantit, cradling her eight-month-old son in her arms, as the boom of shells echoed in the distance and drones and F16s growled overhead.
“For one-and-a-half hours there was shelling all around the school … it was the most terrifying night, death came very close to us.
“When they struck the classrooms we lost electricity – we couldn’t see anything and it was hard to breathe from the dust and the fear.”
One shell blew out the front wall of a classroom, another tore a large hole in the ceiling of a second-floor classroom across the courtyard, a third hit a small building near the school gates.
The families sleeping inside did not stand a chance.
“I was sleeping when the first shell landed,” said 15-year-old Rezeq al-Adham as he lay in Kamal Adwan Hospital awaiting surgery to save his badly injured right leg.
“I escaped into the school yard and that is when the second shell landed,” Rezeq said. His father saw him fall to the ground bleeding as chaos broke out all around them.
“These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army,” the United Nations Relief and Works Commissioner Pierre Krahenbuhl said.
He condemned the attack as “a serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.
Reuters reported that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack as outrageous and unjustifiable. “It demands accountability and justice,” he said. “Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children.”
It was the second mass casualty attack, and the sixth strike, on a UN school since Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began on July 8.
“The precise location of the Jabalia Elementary Girls School and the fact that it was housing thousands of internally displaced people was communicated to the Israeli army 17 times to ensure its protection; the last … just hours before the fatal shelling,” Mr Krahenbulh said.
UN shelters are overflowing, he said, and UN staff – “the very people leading the humanitarian response” – are being killed.
“Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”
He called on the international community to take political action to put an end to the carnage, which continued on Wednesday when three airstrikes on the outskirts of the town Shajaiyah killed 15 and injured 150.
As thick black smoke billowed from the initial airstrike witnesses said emergency services and civilians rushed to help the dead and injured, only to be hit with a further two airstrikes minutes later.
The attack was carried during a four-hour “humanitarian lull” announced by the Israeli Defence Force – it had warned “the humanitarian window will not apply to the areas in which IDF soldiers are currently operating”, including Shajaiyah.
Amid scenes of panic and carnage, with bodies torn apart and severely injured being carried by hand waiting ambulances, the people of Gaza prepared for another terrifying night of bombardment.
“This atrocity is barbarity personified,” the director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Medhat Abbas said, amid scenes of chaos at hospitals in the centre and north of the coastal strip.
More than 108 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shelling on Wednesday alone, bringing the toll to at least 1318 dead and 7100 wounded. Human rights groups say 80 per cent of the casualties are civilian and of them, 31 per cent are children.
The Obama administration, without naming Israel, condemned the shelling of the UNRWA school and urged a prompt investigation into the incident.
In response to media inquires, an IDF spokeswoman told Fairfax Media: “The inquiry the IDF conducted revealed militants fired mortars at IDF soldiers from the vicinity of the UNRWA school in Jabalia. In response, the soldiers fired towards the origins of fire and this incident is still being reviewed.”
source:smh.com.au
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