The US has instructed Israel to maintain complete transparency regarding the airstrike on Thursday (June 6) that resulted in the death of at least 30 individuals at a Gaza school sheltering displaced persons.
According to reports, a warplane targeted classrooms on the top floor of the school in the Nuseirat urban refugee camp, firing two missiles.
The US asked Israel to identify publicly the Hamas fighters it said it had killed – as the Israeli military gave the names of nine of them.
According to US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, the Israelis informed us that they were targeting 20 to 30 militants and they plan to disclose the names of those they believe they have killed.
Israeli strike on UN school
Israel conducted a targeted airstrike on a Gaza school on Thursday (June 6), which it claimed housed up to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.
According to a Hamas official, the attack resulted in the death of 30 people, including women and children who were seeking shelter at the UN site.
The video footage showed Palestinians carrying away bodies and several injured people in a hospital after the attack.
The attack came at a moment while talks are on for a ceasefire that would involve releasing hostages held by Hamas and some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, an injured boy waiting for medical assistance wept inconsolably after losing his father in the strike.
“What did we do? There are no armed people in the school. The ones there are children, playing. We play together… Why did they bomb us?” he said in the video obtained by Reuters.
The US issued a joint statement with other countries calling on Israel and Hamas to compromise to finalise a deal after eight months of war in the Gaza Strip.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, stated that Hamas had not yet responded to the latest ceasefire proposal and was still reviewing it. He added that mediation efforts by Qatar, Egypt, and the US are ongoing.
According to Hamas sources, there was nothing new to respond to, adding that Israel’s proposal was old and the group rejected it because it did not speak of an end to the war.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office, rejected Israel’s assertion that the UN school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, had hidden a Hamas command post.
“Israel uses … false fabricated stories to justify the evil crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people,” Thawabta told Reuters.
Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said, Israel had carried out “a specific, intelligence-based strike” against “dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who were hiding inside a UN school.”
Some of the militants had participated in the attacks against Israel on Oct 7, he said.
“The operation took place after three days of surveillance and was intended to destroy three specific classrooms in the school where the Israeli military believed roughly 30 militants were staying and planning operations,” said Admiral Hagari.
Israel twice delayed the strike on the school complex because it had identified civilians in the area, he said.
As per intelligence, 20 to 30 fighters were located in the compound, and many of them had been killed.
Later, Israel’s chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the military had so far identified nine of 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters targeted in the pre-dawn strike.
(With inputs from agencies)
