Charred bodies found after Israeli raid on school shelter in Gaza

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
15 Dec 2024 20:50
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Israeli occupation forces besieged, bombed, and stormed a school sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, resulting in at least 15 martyrs and dozens of injuries.

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Palestinians carry the body of a relative killed in the Israeli occupation bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Palestine, Dec. 15, 2024. (AP)

Gaza's Civil Defense announced the martyrdom of at least 15 Palestinians and the injury of dozens of others Sunday following an Israeli occupation forces' raid on a school sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoun, the northern Gaza Strip.

The occupation forces stormed Khalil Oweida school in Beit Hanoun after a siege that lasted for hours, accompanied by gunfire and artillery shelling of the surrounding area. This resulted in the killing and injury of several of the displaced people inside the school.

The Israeli occupation army forced women, children, and the elderly sheltering in the school to flee again toward Gaza City and detained dozens of men sheltering there.

The raid on the school, which housed around 1,500 displaced persons, continued, despite the bodies of martyrs and the wounded scattered on the school grounds and surrounding roads.

The Gaza Civil Defense announced in a statement that there were charred bodies of Palestinian victims inside the school.

It was reported that "between 10 to 15 bodies were burned due to the fires caused by the heavy Israeli bombardment that targeted the school’s rooms and facilities."

At least 40 people were martyred after the occupation bombed residential areas in Beit Hanoun and Khalil Awida School, according to Al Mayadeen's correspondent.

Elsewhere, our correspondent reported that six people were martyred in an Israeli airstrike on the Civil Defense headquarters in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent further reported that several were martyred and injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.

Six injured people were brought to the al-Maamadani Hospital following the bombing of the house in the northern part of the neighborhood.

Gaza Civil Defense targeted

Gaza's Civil Defense condemned in a statement the "heinous crime" committed by the Israeli occupation against "our crews in the central governorate, while they were performing their humanitarian and national duty."

"This Israeli occupation directly bombed our crews in the Nuseirat Center without any humanitarian or legal considerations, killing them while they were performing their prayers after a rescue mission," the statement read, detailing that four were killed on the spot, including two volunteers and directors of two centers, and the injury of five others, three of whom are in critical condition.

The emergency body mourned martyrs Lieutenant Colonel Nidal Alian Abu Hajir, the director of the Nuseirat/Bureij Center, Major Alaa al-Abd al-Naizi, the director of the Sheikh Radwan Civil Defense Center, retired volunteer Khaled Muhammad al-Muqadma, and volunteer Ahmed Bakr al-Louh.

The Civil Defense decried this being the second targeting of the Nuseirat Civil Defense Center, as the occupation bombed the same center at the end of last June, which led to the martyrdom of three firefighting and rescue officers.

"The Israeli occupation confirms to the world yet again that there is no protection for humanitarian service providers and no place in the Gaza Strip to adhere to any international humanitarian laws," it said, announcing that with these deaths, the total number of Civil Defense crews killed in Gaza has risen to 94.

196 journalists killed in Gaza

The Gaza Government Media Office mourned volunteer Ahmed Bakr al-Louh, who also happens to be an Al Jazeera cameraman, as the 196th journalist killed since the beginning of the genocide in the Strip.

The office condemned, in the strongest terms, the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and called on all countries worldwide to denounce these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip.

"We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and the countries complicit in this crime of genocide, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, fully responsible for committing this heinous, brutal crime," it asserted.

Gaza's Government Media Office urged the international community, international organizations, and entities related to journalism and media worldwide to condemn the crimes of the occupation, restrain it, and prosecute its perpetrators in international courts for their continuous crimes, further calling on them to exert serious and effective pressure to stop the genocide and the killing and assassination of Palestinian journalists.