OAN’s Brooke Mallory
Thursday, June 6, 2024 6:16 PM
The US State Department has called on Israel to be fully “transparent” over an airstrike on a school in central Gaza on Thursday morning that is said to have killed at least 35 people.
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However, the previous AP News According to the report, “Hamas, Gaza’s governing body, controls the Ministry of Health,” and the terror group distinguishes between the number of dead and injured, which is why the death toll has been attributed to Hamas disinformation in previous incidents.
In addition to schools and densely populated areas, Hamas has reportedly “operated inside and beneath hospitals, using them as command centers, weapons caches and hiding places for hostages for military operations. Israel has released footage it claims is evidence of Hamas activities.” CNN.
Two missiles were reportedly fired from a warplane, targeting Hamas members hiding in an upper classroom of a school in Nuseira refugee camp. BBC By a local journalist.
“The document [previously] “Israeli paramedics found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists… detailed maps that showed Hamas was trying to kill or take hostage civilians and schoolchildren.” NBC News.
Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the identities of “Hamas fighters” should be revealed. BBC According to reports, the US rarely presses Israel to identify terrorists killed in airstrikes, although Israel typically does so anyway.
“The Israeli government has stated that it will release further information about this attack, including the names of those killed in the attack,” Miller said. “We expect the government to be fully transparent when releasing that information.”
Shortly after, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari released the identities of the nine Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters said to have been killed in Thursday night’s attack, promising to find out more after further investigations to “verify the information.”
The attack took place early Thursday morning at Al-Sardi School, in a densely populated, older neighborhood in the camp served by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, according to Middle East correspondents and local residents.
It has recently come to light that at least 10% of UNRWA staff are directly affiliated or have ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Six of the staff involved in the October 7 attack were:Number Two were said to have actually participated in the attack, while two others were in charge of logistics, including obtaining weapons. Two participated in the kidnapping, and two were present at the massacre of Israeli civilians. The US suspended funding immediately after these discoveries, and a UN spokesman later claimed the men had been quickly identified and fired.
“The Director-General of UNRWA has decided to terminate the appointments of these staff with immediate effect and ‘in the best interest of UNRWA’, in accordance with applicable staff regulations, in order to safeguard its capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance,” UNRWA said in a statement.
Fast forward to the present, and social media posts have begun to surface online showing footage of classrooms in school buildings being destroyed, as well as bodies wrapped in blankets and white cloth.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said at least 35 people were killed, including scores of injured. BBC “These figures come from UNRWA colleagues on the ground.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that they had carried out a “precise strike” on a Hamas compound inside the school, which they said had marked the top two classroom floors of the building as a “terrorist position” in annotated aerial photographs.
But the Government Media Office in Gaza, also controlled by Hamas, denied the Israeli army’s claim that it had carried out a “precise” strike on a “Hamas compound” inside the school.
US State Department official Matthew Miller sharply criticised Israel in a speech in Washington on Thursday, saying: “We’ve heard the allegation that 14 children were killed in this attack. Certainly, if that’s true, if 14 children were killed, then they’re not terrorists.”
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