Israel bombed 16 schools in Gaza in one month: Rights group

A human rights group says it has documented a dangerous escalation in Israel's systematic policy of targeting schools that have been turned into shelters for displaced civilians across the besieged Gaza Strip. 

According to a statement by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, since the beginning of August, Israel has bombed 16 schools used as shelters in the Gaza Strip, killing 217 Palestinians and injuring hundreds – many of them women and children.

The Israeli military has also escalated its targeting of civilians over the past week in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates by bombing residential homes, gatherings, and commercial stands, as well as shelter centers and their surroundings, the statement said. 

In the most recent aggression, the Swiss-based group says its field team has documented Israeli air strikes at midnight on Saturday, targeting the Halimah al-Saadiyah School in Jabalia Al-Nazla, north of the Gaza Strip. The building was sheltering hundreds of forcibly displaced people. The attack killed four Palestinians and injured others.

Earlier on Saturday, Israeli aircraft also bombed Amr Ibn al-Aas School, another shelter for displaced people north of Gaza City, killing four Palestinians, including a child.

"Targeting and destroying schools on top of the displaced has no legitimate justification and constitutes a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and the obligation to take necessary precautions," the group said.

"Preliminary investigations by our field team indicate that the occupation army is deliberately destroying what remains of shelter centers in the Strip, including schools and public facilities, with the aim of creating a coercive environment that forces civilians to leave their homes and displace toward central and southern Gaza," the group said.

"These attacks are part of the actual implementation of genocide in Gaza and aim to depopulate the Palestinian land by killing and forcibly displacing as many Palestinians as possible," it added. 

Elsewhere in the statement, the Geneva-based organization said that the complicity of the United States and its allies had emboldened Israel to press ahead with its months-long genocidal campaign in Gaza. 

"The complicity of Washington and many European countries, amid international silence and failure to take effective measures to stop the crime of genocide, encourages Israel to continue its plans for the genocide of Palestinians through direct and indirect killing and forced displacement," it said.  

Israel bombs school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza, kills 16

The school was sheltering displaced people at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

"We call for the accountability and prosecution of the countries complicit with and partners of Israel in committing crimes, including those providing assistance and engaging in contractual relationships in military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other fields that may contribute to the continuation of these crimes."

Schools in the Gaza Strip have been used to shelter nearly two million displaced Palestinians, since Israel launched its campaign of death and destruction in Gaza on October 7.

Israel is pushing ahead with its deadly air and artillery attacks against the besieged Gaza Strip.

More than 30 Palestinians have been killed and 145 wounded in separate strikes on the besieged Palestinian region since Saturday afternoon.

The central areas of Gaza have been the focus of the attacks where three residential buildings were struck.

Gaza school massacre: Israel hits two more schools, killing 30 Palestinians

The regime

In another deadly attack, eight people were killed in an airstrike targeting a school in Jebalia refugee camp that sheltered displaced Palestinians. 

At least 33 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the last 24 hours, including eight in an attack on a school sheltering displaced people.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza since early October last year is now close to 41,000, mostly women and children. 

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