The United States has told Israel that it expects clear answers regarding an airstrike that killed at least 35 people, reportedly including 14 children, at a U.N. school in central Gaza where internally displaced Palestinians were taking refuge. Photo by Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE
June 7 (UPI) — The United States communicated to Israel that it expects clear answers regarding an airstrike that killed at least 35 people, reportedly including 14 children, at a U.N. school in central Gaza where internally displaced Palestinians were taking refuge.
Israel must follow through on promises to release more information to square their claim it was a precision strike on a Hamas-Islamic Jihad cell with footage from the scene and claims children were killed, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told a briefing Thursday.
“They have said to us essentially what they have said publicly, which is that — and this is their claim — that they were targeting 20 to 30 members of Hamas and other militant groups, that they used a precision strike to target only one part of the building without hitting areas where civilians were sheltering.
“At the same time, we’ve seen the reports on the ground. We’ve seen the videos from the ground. We’ve seen the claims that 14 children were killed in this strike. And certainly when you see — if that is accurate that 14 children were killed, those aren’t terrorists. And so 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,” said Miller.
“We expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public.”
Shortly after Miller’s comments, Israel Defense Forces published the names of nine members of the cell “eliminated” in the airstrike — two belonging to Hamas and seven from Islamic Jihad, in a post on X.
“These are the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists we eliminated last night during a precise strike who were operating from the U.N. school,” said the post which provides descriptions of what the IDF said were the military roles of each of the men and photos of six of the nine.
Israel often names militants it has “eliminated” but the United States almost never pushes it to do so.
Prior to the release, an IDF spokesman said the men killed early Thursday were part of a Hamas-terror cell “planning and conducting” attacks from inside classrooms in the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency school and that the strike was based on “concrete intelligence from multiple sources.”
“The terrorists hiding inside this school were planning more attacks, some of them imminent. We stopped a ticking time bomb,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman alleged Hamas’ modus operandi of operating out of U.N. facilities, hospitals, schools and mosques was predicated on a cynical effort to hide behind international law and court public sympathy.
The European Union’s top foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, added his voice to U.S. demands for transparency on the attack and renewed his calls for the recent Biden administration-backed plan to end the war to be adopted immediately.
“Reports coming from Gaza time and again show that violence and suffering are still the only reality for hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, Borrell said in a post on X.
“This appalling news must be independently investigated, in line with the last International Court of Justice order.
“An enduring cease-fire is the only way forward to protect civilians and get to the immediate release of all hostages. Both parties must agree on the U.S. three-phase plan now,” added Borrell.
