Israeli airstrike which hit school and killed at least 30 people in Gaza is 'brutal, unconscionable violence'
Smoke rises after an explosion in the Gaza Strip Picture: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
The Taoiseach has condemned the latest attack on a school by the Israeli military as a “further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence”.
Israeli airstrikes hit a school being used by displaced people in central Gazaon Saturday, killing dozens, as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet international mediators to discuss a proposed ceasefire.
At least 30 people sheltering at a girls’ school in Deir Al-Balah were taken to Al Aqsa Hospital and pronounced dead, after a strike that Israel’s military said targeted a Hamas command and control centre used to store weapons and plan attacks.
Reacting to the attack, Mr Harris said: “Targeting an area populated with displaced families is inhumane and despicable.
Mr Harris said Israel continues to use “disproportionate force” and is engaging in a war that is having an “unacceptable level” of civilian death and injury, especially to children.
“I again call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and unimpeded access for aid into Gaza.
“The bloodshed and suffering need to end,” the Taoiseach said.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 11 people had been killed in other strikes on Saturday.
Near the hospital, Associated Press journalists saw an ambulance driving along a dusty road as a few people ran in the opposite direction.
An injured man lay on a stretcher on the ground. A body covered with a blanket and a dead toddler were inside the ambulance.
Inside the school, classrooms were in ruins. People were searching for victims under the rubble and some were gathering remains of those who were killed.
Earlier, Israel’s military ordered the evacuation of a part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday.
The evacuation order was in response to rocket fire that Israel said originated from the area.
The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge throughout the war.
The planned strike comes a day before officials from the US, Egypt, Qatar and Israel meet in Italy to discuss the ongoing hostage and ceasefire negotiations.
CIA director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel on Sunday, according to officials from the US and Egypt.
It is the second evacuation order issued in a week that has included striking part of the humanitarian zone, 20 square miles of tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say.
Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.
According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there after being uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign.
In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order because those sheltering under there were constantly being displaced.
“Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don’t do any justice to what this means,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications.
“These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Further north, Palestinians mourned the deaths of seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza.
Deir al-Balah’s Al Aqsa hospital confirmed the count and Associated Press journalists saw the bodies.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.
The onslaught has sparked protests across the world, including here in Ireland.
On Saturday in Cork, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign said about 800 people attended their latest march through the city - the 43rd consecutive weekend of marches - which featured the theatrical staging of the ‘arrest’ of several key Western leaders.
It was staged in response to the International Court of Justice ruling last week which declared the Israeli occupation of Palestine territories “illegal” and in a breach of international law.
Protesters were led through the city by impersonators of Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Keir Starmer, Ursula Von Der Leyen, and Donald Trump dressed in prison stripes, with an impersonator of Taoiseach Simon Harris nearby.
Marchers performed a mock trial “convicting” the leaders for war crimes and complicity as the crowds booed.
They also called on the Irish government to “get serious” about opposing genocide by enacting sanctions to isolate the Israeli regime.
“We now have an intensification of the Israeli ground operation which began this weekend,” said Anne McShane, co-chair of the Cobh Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
“The legal wings of the United Nations and its associated organisations in the International Criminal Court are coming out more strongly against the genocide.
“The ICJ has ruled that the occupation of the West Bank and other Palestinian territory is unlawful, Israel must bring an immediate end to this occupation, that all expansion must end, and that there must be reparations made to all Palestinians who were forced off their land since 1967.
“Simon Harris, in his response, said it’s complicated and must talk about it with our European “partners” but of course, it is not complicated. The ICJ has made it clear that Israel is a pariah state and it needs to be boycotted.”
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