Germany Demands an Investigation into Israeli Airstrike on Gaza School that killed at least 30 People
Germany has demanded the earliest investigation of an Israeli attack on a school in the Gaza Strip in which at least 30 displaced persons were killed on Tuesday.
The media department of the German Foreign Ministry expressed its concern on X (Previously Twitter) on Wednesday, saying: “It is unacceptable to kill people while seeking protection in schools. Children, women and general civilians should not become targets.” Like many other ministries, it also called for the cease of Israeli attacks on schools, which have been many.
The incident happened in the context of a war in Gaza – most Palestinians have nowhere else to go and end up taking shelter in schools.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X that Israel had shelled four schools in Gaza in the past four days. “Since the start of the war, over two-thirds of UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip are affected,” Lazzarini said, adding that some shelters were bombed, and many are heavily damaged. He strongly denounced the attacks, especially concerning international humanitarian law, and said again that the cessation of hostilities must not be allowed to become a new norm.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 30 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on Al-Awda School in Abasan, east of Khan Younis and more than 53 other people were injured, some of whom were in critical condition. The ministry described the attack as a heinous massacre of stranded citizens it said had been sheltering in the region.
Also, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society described losses for an Israeli attack in Abu Hameed’s roundabout, Khalun’s vicinity in the southern Gaza Strip.
Thus, their military has deliberately attacked schools, hospitals and other non-military targets during their ongoing aggression in Gaza, which is in its ninth month. Such facilities are meant to be safeguarded under internationally recognised laws forbidding attacks; thus, these attacks may fall under what is considered war crimes.
The Israeli military warned the residents of eastern Khan Younis last week and evacuated Palestinian people from several areas. Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war early this year in October, Israeli forces have attacked several camps hosting the displaced people in the Gaza Strip, with many killed.
Israel has defied a UN Security Council resolution ordering an immediate cease of its attacks and has pursued its attacks on Gaza, leading to international outrage. The war started on the 7th of October, 2023, when the Palestinian group Hamas attacked the south of Israel.
The more than eleven years of conflict have claimed the lives of more than thirty-eight thousand Palestinians, most of whom were women and children, and over eighty-eight thousand have been treated in local health facilities. Significant areas of the Gaza Strip are devastated after nine months of war, and the crisis culminates in a blockade that barely allows food, clean water and medicines to enter the enclave.
Today, Israel is in Tribunal receiving accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The new ruling of the court compelled Israel to cease its military activities in the southern town of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had fled for their safety before the city was entered on May 6.
