Israeli strike on Gaza school kills 12 Palestinians
Biden remarks ‘green light’ for Israel to continue war: Hamas
Israel has killed 12 Palestinians in a strike on a school in Gaza City, Gaza civil defense said, where “hundreds” of displaced people are sheltering.
“Our crews retrieved 12 martyrs from the Mustafa Hafiz school, which was bombed by the Israeli occupation west of Gaza City,” agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in the school, he said, amid the ongoing Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claimed the school was targeted because it housed a command-and-control center.
Bassal said the strike hit the second floor of the school building.
Photos showed the school reduced to rubble, with scores of Palestinian men and women, many holding children, fleeing the site after the strike.
In recent weeks, the Israeli military has struck several schools across Gaza, primarily in Gaza City, accusing them of housing Hamas command centers, which the resistance group denies. Earlier this month, the military had struck the Al-Tabieen School in Gaza City, which according to the civil defense agency killed 93 Palestinians.
Tens of thousands of displaced people have taken refuge in schools since the beginning of the Israel’s devastating war on October 7. Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 40,173 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.
Diplomatic efforts are underway to end the regime’s bloody campaign in the Palestinian territory.
The three mediators, namely the US, Qatar and Egypt, have spent months trying to end the war in Gaza, with the talks repeatedly stalling.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has traveled to the region for the ninth time since October, said on Monday that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge differences holding up a cease-fire and captive release in Gaza, and he called on Hamas to do the same, without saying whether concerns cited by the resistance group had been addressed.
US siding with Israel
Hamas has said it is losing faith in the US as a mediator, accusing American negotiators of siding with Israel as it makes new demands that the resistance group rejects. Blinken did not say whether the proposal addressed Israel’s demand for control over two strategic corridors inside Gaza — which Hamas has said is a nonstarter — or other issues that have long bedeviled the negotiations.
Hamas senior official Osama Hamdan criticized Blinken’s statement, saying it “raises many ambiguities” because it is “not what was presented to us nor what we agreed on.”
Hamas on Tuesday also condemned claims by US President Joe Biden that it was backing away from a Gaza truce deal, calling his remarks a “green light” for Israel to continue the war.
The “misleading claims... do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a cease-fire” agreement, Hamas said in a statement.
It called Biden’s remarks an “American green light for the Zionist extremist government to commit more crimes against defenseless civilians”.
Hamas said Biden’s remarks reflect a clear “American bias” towards Israel and Washington’s complicity in the “war of extermination against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip”.
The group said it is committed to a cease-fire framework outlined by Biden on May 31 which he said had been proposed by Israel.