UN condemns Israeli strikes at Gazan school

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Saturday condemned the increasing frequency of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) strikes on schools, where hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, with the latest attacks killing dozens at a Gaza City school.At around 04:30 during dawn prayer on Saturday, a mosque inside Al Tabaeen School was struck by the IDF “at least three times”, OHCHR in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a statement, adding that the attacks were “conducted with apparent disregard for the high rate of civilian fatalities”.An initial report showed the strikes killed at least 93 Palestinians, including 11 children and six women.Between 7 October 2023 and 8 August, at least 39 699 Palestinians were killed and 91 722 were injured in the ongoing war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. More than 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, many multiple times, since 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led attacks on Israel left 1 200 dead and 250 people taken hostage, with more than 100 remaining in Gaza as talks continue to end the war.Schools, UN facilities and civilian infrastructure should not be targets, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, reiterated in a social media post on Saturday morning.“Another day of horror in Gaza, another school hit with reports of dozens of Palestinian killed among them women, children and older people,” he said, adding that parties to the conflict must not use schools and other civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes and must, at all times, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.“It’s time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end,” he said. “We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity.”The majority of fatalities resulting from the Saturday IDF strikes appear to have been inside the mosque performing their prayers, OHCHR reported. Dozens of others were reportedly seriously injured, mostly children, women and older people.This is at least the 21st strike on a school, each serving as a shelter, that the OHCHR has recorded since 4 July. These strikes have resulted in at least 274 fatalities, including women and children.“Despite IDF statements that all measures are taken to avoid civilian harm, the repeated strikes on shelters [for displaced people] in areas to which the populations have been forced to move and the consistent and predictable impact on civilians suggest a failure to strictly comply with obligations required by international humanitarian law,” it said.

UN condemns Israeli strikes at Gazan school

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Namibian Sun 2026-08-05

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UN condemns Israeli strikes at Gazan school

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Namibian Sun 2026-08-05

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