US, UN Outraged as Israel Strikes Another Gaza School

10 Killed in Seventh Israeli Attack on a School So Far

Israel continues its war in Gaza today, and continues to hammer refugee centers at an alarming rate, hitting the seventh UN-run school of the current war this morning with a drone strike.

The drone strike landed in the street immediately in front of the school gates, killing 10 civilians and wounding dozens of others, including children who were clustered around the gate playing.

It was, as mentioned, the seventh school hit so far in the war, and the third in the past 10 days. The UN has been using the schools as shelters for refugees, and gave the Israeli military exact coordinates, in theory to avoid them being mistakenly targeted.

Instead the attacks are becoming so common that Israeli military claims of “accidental” strikes are no longer credible, and while Israeli politicians have tried to present the shelters as legitimate military targets, their constant targeting is fueling international outrage.

The United Nations termed the attack a “moral outrage” and a “criminal act,” and the usual Israeli Lobby expressions of fury at UN criticism are no longer as quick to follow up, nor as shrill.

Even the United States, normally up for whatever Israel feels like doing, is no longer dancing around such incidents, with the State Department statement lashing the Israeli attack as “disgraceful” and reiterating that Israel has to stop attacking civilians.

UNRWA head Pierre Krahenbuhl, whose agency runs the schools in question, pointed out again today that the attacks are a violation of international law, a fact Israel no longer seems to be seriously trying to dispute, even if it isn’t stopping them from such attacks.

For the civilians chased out of their homes by the Israeli invasion and crammed into a handful of UN shelters, only to find the shelters themselves targeted, the international outcry is unlikely to be much comfort, especially so long as Israel remains content to keep pounding them and shrug off the criticism.

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.