An Israeli airstrike on a tented encampment for displaced Palestinians outside Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, Gaza Health Ministry officials said. The attack is the fourth since Saturday when an Israeli air strike hit Al-Jaouni School, a United Nations facility inside the Al- Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza where displaced people were sheltering, killing 16 people and injuring dozens. File photo by Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE
An Israeli airstrike on a tented encampment for displaced Palestinians outside Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed at least 27 people and injured dozens, Gaza Health Ministry officials said.
The strike near the entrance to al-Awda school in the town of Abasan al-Kabira on Tuesday injured at least 53 people with some in “critical” condition, the Hamas-run ministry said in an update on social media. Advertisement
Witness reports put the killed and injured far higher with one telling the BBC that the number of people caught up in the attack was “unimaginable”.
Israel Defense Forces, which confirmed it had carried out a precision attack targeting a Hamas operative who had participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, said it was investigating reports civilians had been hurt.
The incident follows three similar attacks on schools sheltering displaced people since Saturday, CNN reported.
CNN described footage filmed after Tuesday’s incident showing dazed Palestinian children climbing over shards of concrete amid bombed-out buildings and traumatized family members weeping at the nearby Nasser Hospital where the dead and injured were taken. Advertisement
Tuesday’s attack attracted widespread international condemnation, much of it couched in the strongest language.
“A school sheltering families in Khan Younis has been bombed by IDF, with tens of people reportedly killed. For how long are innocent civilians going to bear the brunt of this conflict?” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in a statement on X.
“We condemn any violation of international law: those responsible must be held accountable,” he said, adding that an immediate cease-fire was crucial to bring respite to displaced civilians, free all the hostages and deliver the humanitarian assistance needed by Gazans.
The German foreign ministry said in a post on X that the attack was intolerable and called for an urgent inquiry.
“People seeking shelter in schools getting killed is unacceptable. The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and an investigation must come quickly.”
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations’ Palestinian refugees agency, said schools had gone from being sanctuaries of learning to crammed shelters at best and places of misery and death at worst.
“Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction and despair continue,” he said in a statement. Advertisement
“Gaza is no place for children,” Lazzarini added, stressing that what he called the “blatant disregard” of international humanitarian law must not become “the new normal.”
An Israeli attack on a UNRWA school where displaced people were sheltering in the al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday killed at least 16 and injured dozens, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
On July 1, the Israeli military ordered thousands of civilians to leave Abasan al-Kabira and other areas of eastern Khan Younis “for your own safety” ahead of a military operation targeting sites from which 20 rockets were fired at surrounding Israeli settlements.
