Yesterday was another devastating day in the ongoing brutal assault on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation forces. In the fourth strike in four days on a school used to shelter displaced Palestinians 29 people lost their lives when Al Awda school in Abasan, near the southern city of Khan Yunis, was hit by the Israeli forces. According to the government media office, the majority of those who lost their lives in the “terrible massacre” were children and women who had taken shelter there from the ongoing war on Gaza.
Scores of people were killed and injured in the earlier attacks on schools daily starting from Saturday when an Israeli strike hit the UN-run Al Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza, killing 16 people. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said 2,000 people were sheltering there at the time. On Sunday Holy Family school in Gaza City where hundreds of people were sheltered was hit killing four people. On Monday it was the turn of UNRWA-run school in Nuseirat.
These mindless attacks on civilians who had to flee home and take shelter in schools and camps are a clear violation of all international laws and human rights conventions. It is very disheartening that the international community is not coming together strongly against these barbaric acts by Israel.
The ongoing attacks have also made entry of aid into the Strip next to impossible forcing UN human rights experts to announce that famine has spread throughout Gaza.
In a statement, the UN experts considered that the death of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip due to malnutrition and dehydration confirms the spread of famine, describing the starvation campaign carried out by the Israeli entity against the Palestinian people as “a form of genocide, and it has caused famine.”
They also urged the international community to give priority to delivering aid to Gaza by land and to end the Israeli siege on the Strip. UNRWA also reported that nearly 300,000 of its students in the Gaza Strip have remained out of school for 9 months. As hospitals and school buildings have been bombed to dust, it will take a mammoth effort to build back the basic infrastructure.
It has become vitally important to reach a permanent ceasefire so that the killing of innocents stops at once. It is also important to look through the rubble for those who succumbed to the destruction. A truce is also important for the aid distribution to the displaced millions who are struggling to get the essentials. Let’s hope that the ceasefire talks have a positive outcome as the tears have run dry.
