Israel bombs school with displaced people and kills 28 people

At least 28 people died, this Thursday (17), in the north of the Gaza Strip, after an Israeli attack hit a school in Jabalia. Among the victims are women and children, displaced from their homes due to the uninterrupted bombings by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The medical director of Al-Shifa hospital, Medhat Abbas, told the Reuters news agency that more than 160 people were also injured in the attack and stated that “there is no water to put out the fire. There is nothing.”

Residents also told Reuters that Israeli forces were bombing homes and placing bombs in buildings before blowing them up remotely, and that they had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, in the far north of the enclave, blocking people from leaving. , except for families permitted to obey evacuation orders and leave all three cities.

“We wrote our death notices and we will not leave Jabalia. The occupation is punishing us for not leaving our homes in the first days of the war, and we won’t leave now either. They are blowing up houses and roads, and they are starving us, but we died once and we didn’t lose our pride,” said a man, father of four, but who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, through a message on a chat app.

In recent days, Israel has intensified attacks on northern Gaza, amid its escalating offensive on the border with Lebanon.

On Tuesday (15), more than 50 people died, according to the local government, after bombing targeted several locations in the Arab enclave. The operation has raised concerns among Palestinians and UN agencies that Israel wants to expel residents from the north.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Israeli army ordered the three hospitals operating there to be evacuated, but medical staff said they were determined to continue their services even as they were overwhelmed by the growing number of casualties.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the number of civilian casualties in northern Gaza.

The northern part of Gaza is home to well over half of the territory’s 2.3 million people, and hundreds of thousands of residents were forced to flee their homes amid heavy shelling in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory. About 400,000 people remained, according to United Nations estimates.