The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has condemned the Israeli occupation’s targeting of schools that shelter thousands of Palestinians who were forcibly displaced, the latest incident was the bombing of Al-Tabin school in Gaza city, which led to hundreds of martyrs and injured.
In a statement, OHCHR clarified this was the 21st attack that targeted a school, since Jul.4, and resulted in killing at least 274 Palestinians, including women and children, stressing that the recurrent strikes on displaced shelters in the areas to which the Palestinians were forced to move, along with the constant and unanticipated impact on civilians, indicate that Israel has utterly failed in complying with the obligations imposed by international humanitarian law, including the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack.
These systematic attacks on schools come as part of displacing over 90 percent of Gazans, while the Israeli occupation army continues
to blow up residential structures and restrict of humanitarian access and distribution of aid, the statement added.
The statement pointed out that displaced people are facing unspeakable terror after 10 months of hostilities, including multiple incidents of forced displacement, rapid outbreak of diseases, and ongoing deprivation of access to essentials of life. For many of them, schools have become the last refuge to find some shelter and potentially access food and water.
For his part, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said the world woke up to another day of horror in Gaza, following the bombing of another school and reports of dozens of martyrs, including women, children and the elderly.
In a post on the X platform, Lazzarini added that all Parties must always protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, adding that Its time for these horrors unfolding under watch to end. He stressed that he cannot le
t the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity.
Source: Qatar News Agency