SCORES of people, including many women and children, were killed in Israeli air attacks on two UN-run schools in northern Gaza on Saturday – Al Fakhoura school in the Jabalia refugee camp and the school in Tel al-Zaatar.
Almost 200 people may have been killed in these attacks, with the number expected to increase as there are many under the rubble and people are having to use shovels and dig with their bare hands to try to dig people out.
Several hundred people were taking shelter at both schools, fleeing the non-stop Israeli attacks. The attack on Al Fakhoura took place in the early hours of the morning, while the attack on Tal al-Zaatar took place later in the day.
‘The scenes were horrifying. Corpses of women and children were on the ground. Others were screaming for help,’ wounded survivor Ahmed Radwan said.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for ‘an urgent international investigation and independent investigators to probe Israel’s targeting of schools and hospitals in Gaza’.
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said: ‘Shelters are a place for safety. Schools are a place for learning. It is tragic news of the children, women and men killed while sheltering at Al Fakhoura school in northern Gaza. Civilians cannot and should not have to bear this any longer.’
Thirty-one premature babies were evacuated from al-Shifa Hospital and taken to the European and Nasser hospitals in the south yesterday, from where they will be transferred to Egypt via Rafah, alone unless contact is made with their families.
The Save the Children charity sent six ambulances to al-Shifa to evacuate the babies. Once they’re in the south, they will be distributed between the European and Nasser hospitals, but hospitals in the south have reached maximum capacity.
There are currently twelve incubators at Nasser hospital which are already occupied and there are only six remaining for the 31 babies coming in.
- An Israeli newspaper has reported that a helicopter gunship belonging to Israel’s military killed some, if not most, of the 360 settlers who died at the Supernova music festival near the Gaza border on October 7.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported on Saturday that an Israeli army combat helicopter fired at party-goers after arriving at the scene.
One of the findings reinforcing its assessment is that the first Hamas resistance fighters arrived at the festival’s location from Route 232, and not from the direction of the Gaza border, according to Israeli police and other senior security figures.
- US media outlets are reporting that the Israeli occupation army ‘rearranged’ weapons it claimed to have discovered at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City before the international news agencies were allowed to visit the medical facility controlled by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
CNN said in a report that Israel ‘may have placed’ weapons at al-Shifa Hospital where they allowed reporters to record what they claimed to have found following groundless allegations that Hamas had stashed arms at Gaza’s largest hospital and used the site to launch attacks on the occupied territories.
‘An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) video on November 15 showing a tour of Hamas weaponry found at al-Shifa hospital shows less weaponry at the scene than in later footage filmed by international news crews, indicating the weaponry may have been moved or placed there prior to news crews arriving,’ the report said.
Ezzat al-Resheq, of the Hamas political bureau, said: ‘The occupation forces are still lying … as they brought some weapons, clothes and tools and placed them in the hospital in a scandalous manner.’
- Yemen has seized a British/Israeli ship called Galaxy Leader with 22 people on board en route from Turkey to India.
Yemen’s Houthi leadership said on Friday that they would target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies.
A spokesman for Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi military, Yahya Sarea, said the group will target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies or carrying the Israeli flag.
The spokesman called on all countries to withdraw their citizens working on the crews of any such ships.
• See editorial