Israeli strikes hammered a Gaza refugee camp on Friday after a deadly strike on a UN-run school, as the genocide entered its ninth month. Meanwhile, the US White House spokesperson, Mathew Miller, in a slip of the tongue, said, “Israel has a right to try and target those civilians” in response to questions about an attack on a UN school in central Gaza that killed dozens of people.
Asked by Anadolu about the spokesperson’s remarks, the State Department said Miller misspoke and that he intended to say “Hamas” rather than “civilians.” A footnote with the correction is expected to be added to the official department transcript of Thursday’s briefing.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza said at least 37 people were killed in Thursday’s Israeli strike on the UN-run school in Nuseirat camp.
The Israeli army said its fighter jets killed nine “terrorists” in three classrooms where about 30 militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been hiding.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said hundreds of displaced Palestinians had been sheltering at the school which was “hit without prior warning”.
UN Secretary-General chief Antonio Guterres described the strike as “another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying”.
Strikes across Gaza
The United States, which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid, urged its ally to be “fully” transparent about the strike.
“The government of Israel has said that they are going to release more information about this strike, including the names of those who died in it. We expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Journalist Hind Khoudary reported that Israel attacked the school late in the night when the people were asleep.
On Friday, strikes targeted various areas across the Gaza Strip.
A day after the school was hit, the Nuseirat refugee camp faced renewed Israeli artillery shelling and air strikes, reported AFP.
A medical source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the Isa family home near a medical centre in the Bureij refugee camp was targeted, leaving several wounded.
Witnesses also confirmed Israeli strikes in the east of Deir al-Balah, as well as intensive fire from Israeli army vehicles east of the Bureij camp, where a blaze raged at a roundabout.
In Gaza City, casualties were reported from an Israeli missile strike on the Ashram family home near Al-Salam mosque, according to a medical source at Baptist Hospital.
Six people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli strike on the Wafati home in Maghazi camp, said a medical source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Air force jets also targeted the Al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah, sources in the city on the southern border with Egypt said.
Gaza also came under fire from the sea, with Israeli warships bombarding homes in the fishermen’s port area, among others, west of Gaza City, an AFP correspondent said.
