UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said: Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.
We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts. It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.
The precise location of the Jabalia Elementary Girls School and the fact that it was housing thousands of internally displaced people was communicated to the Israeli army seventeen times, to ensure its protection; the last being at ten to nine last night, just hours before the fatal shelling. [Continue reading…]
Amnesty International says the attack should be investigated as a possible war crime.
I am from Vancouver,canada and I wanted to say why is the UN putting up with this aggression from Israel.Why don’t the UN have an emergency meeting to discuss these atrocities committed by Israel.If the UN don’t do anything about this then it is complicit in the deaths of the people of Gaza.
The UN, through its agency UNRWA, is doing an immense amount in Gaza to help the population, but the UN Security Council is hamstrung by the U.S. veto. The U.S. government is so enslaved by its loyalty to Israel that any attempt to pass a legally binding resolution in the SC will get blocked by the U.S. on Israel’s behalf. So even while UN Sec Gen Ban and others make statements expressing their outrage at Israel’s actions, Israel can thumb its nose at the body which is responsible for enforcing international law because neither Obama nor anyone else in Washington has enough backbone to do the right thing.