Israel Defends Attacking Another UN School Full of Refugees in Gaza

20 Killed, Scores Wounded in Latest Salvo

Following the all-too-familiar trend of denying attacks on civilian targets, then loudly defending them, the Israeli Foreign Ministry today issued a statement defending last night’s attack on a UN-run girls’ school full of refugees, an attack that killed at least 20 people and wounded scores of others.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi Hanegbi cited previous UN discoveries of rockets stored in closed schools, insisting the UN had no right to complain when Israel attacked any of their schools at this point.

The difference is that the schools the UN found rockets hidden in were closed for the summer, while the schools Israel has attacked so far were open and running, with the UN using them to house hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing the Israeli onslaught.

Indeed, Israel continues to order civilians out of their homes as they escalate the attacks on the Gaza Strip, and since they’re attacking literally every city and town in Gaza there is no place to go except for these 85 UN-run shelters. Having chosen to deliberately target these shelters, Israel is only adding to the growing international outcry about their war crimes in Gaza.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.