Hamas has condemned the “brutal” Israeli shelling of a school in Gaza City on Friday, which killed several Palestinians, calling it another “deliberate” war crime and a blatant violation of the ceasefire.
In a statement on Saturday, the Gaza-based resistance group also called out the “international silence and failure” to stop these crimes.
“The artillery strike carried out by the fascist Israeli occupation army on a school sheltering displaced civilians in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City, which resulted in the killings of several citizens, most of them children, is a brutal crime against innocent civilians and a flagrant, repeated violation of the ceasefire agreement,” read the statement.
The terrorist Israeli regime, it added, “continues its violations of the ceasefire by deliberately and continuously targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 400 martyrs since the agreement was announced over two months ago, amid an international silence and failure to act against these crimes.”
Hamas emphasized that the occupation does not stop at targeting civilians, but deepens the humanitarian catastrophe by preventing ambulances and medical teams from reaching the sites of attacks to rescue and treat the wounded.
The resistance group warned that the criminal behavior “amounts to compounded war crimes and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
Hamas also urged the mediators guaranteeing the agreement and the US administration to fulfill their responsibilities regarding these violations and to intervene immediately to halt the attempts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-criminal cabinet to impose equations that contradict and clearly undermine the agreement.
Israel’s Friday attack on a school-turned-shelter near Mohammad al-Durra Hospital, east of the al-Tuffah neighborhood, killed at least seven Palestinians and wounded several others.
Some bodies were recovered in pieces, eyewitnesses told local news sources.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 738 times, the Gaza Government Media Office said.
It said Israel shot at civilians 205 times, raided residential areas beyond the yellow line 37 times, bombed and shelled Gaza 358 times, and demolished people’s properties on 138 occasions.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 394 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 11, the first full day of the ceasefire. Another 1,075 people have been wounded.
Hamas leader Ghazi Hamas said on Tuesday that Israel had committed more than 813 ceasefire violations.
He added that since the ceasefire agreement came into force, about 400 people have been killed, noting that more than 95% of the dead are civilians.
The latest figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry, tracking the casualties from October 7, 2023, confirm that over 70,600 Palestinians, including more than 20,150 children, have been killed during the Israeli genocide against Gaza.
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