The Palestinian Authority says it holds the Biden administration responsible for the attack on the al-Tabin school due to its financial, military and political support for Israel.
Outside the White House on Nov. 4, 2023. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The office of the Palestinian Authority’s president is holding the U.S. government responsible for a weekend bombing in Gaza that killed an estimated 100 people, including at least 11 children.
The victims of the attack on the al-Tabin school were blown to “pieces,” according to video evidence and on-the-ground reporting, when U.S.-provided missiles were fired on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.
In the wake of the attack that stirred global outrage and condemnation Saturday, the Palestinian presidency’s spokesperson Nabih Abu Rudeineh condemned the massacre and said the PA held the Biden administration “responsible for the massacre due to its financial, military, and political support for Israel.”
Rudeineh demanded the U.S. pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease indiscriminate attacks that have left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians dead, wounded, and displaced over recent months.
In addition, he said, the U.S. must conform to international law by ending its “blind support” to Israel “that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”
As Common Dreams previously reported, the bombing of the al-Tabin school complex came just hours after the U.S. State Department announced the release of $3.5 billion in military aid for Israel and made new weapons transfers available to help refresh the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stockpiles.
“U.S. funding of Israeli genocide is ballooning as the Israeli army uses ever more lethal bombs,” said Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestine, in an online post Sunday. “The ones used yesterday in the Al-Tabin School massacre sliced bodies to the point of making them unrecognizable. They are now identified by weight: 70kg bag = 1 adult. Revolting.”
A journalist asked me how I "feel" about Gaza today. How am I supposed to feel in the face of a Western-sponsored army relentlessly butchering people trapped in what resembles a circle of Dante's Hell?
I feel sick. https://t.co/ts5Cc1ay9u
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) August 10, 2024
The head of Gaza’s Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that the three bombs dropped on the school weighed 2,000 pounds each, matching the size of the MK-84 munitions provided by the thousands to the IDF by the United States over the last year.
“Another day of horror in Gaza, another school hit with reports of dozens of Palestinian killed among them women, children and older people,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Saturday in response to the attack. “It’s time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end. We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity.”
The UN human rights office said the latest attack was “at least the 21st strike on a school, each serving as a shelter, that the UN [the agency] has recorded since 4 July. These strikes have resulted in at least 274 fatalities, including women and children.”
Responding to claims by the IDF that the bombing was aimed at militants it claimed were using the facility, OHCHR said in a statement that
“co-location by armed groups of military objectives with civilians” does not release Israel from its “obligation to comply strictly with [international humanitarian law], including the principles of proportionality, distinction and precaution when carrying out military operations. Israel, as the occupying power, is obliged to provide the population it has forcibly displaced with basic humanitarian needs, including safe shelter.”
Asked about the situation in Gaza on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, said during a campaign stop in Phoenix that she and President Joe Biden have been working “around the clock” to secure a ceasefire deal that would see the fighting end and Israeli hostages held by Hamas returned safely.
"Yet again, there are far too many civilians who've been killed. Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas. But as I have said many, many times, they also have, I believe, an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties."
— Kamala Harris on Gaza pic.twitter.com/Ir0bysiFT9
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) August 10, 2024
Specifically about Saturday’s bombing of the school complex, Harris said, “Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed.”
Despite global outrage over Saturday’s attack, the Israeli military overnight Sunday issued new evacuation orders for southern Gaza.
Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
The US certainly has a hand in it, as does Israel. But I would argue Hamas’ actions on 10/7 are ultimately responsible. Maybe they should concentrate some of their ire on their own government.
Without the Al Asqa Flood on 10/7, none of this would be happening. They had a relatively peaceful coexistence with Israel on 10/6. Far from perfect, but one heck of a lot better than what they have now. Perhaps their government shouldn’t have breached that peace, and perhaps Gazans shouldn’t overwhelmingly support those actions.
They do not care about civilian casualties, if they did this would have stopped already. They create the threat, then have the nerve to act innocent in the face of wanton terrorism. And are fooling no one.
Let Israel become the pariah state it deserves to be. In truth certain US interests have been salivating to get into it with Iran. Those dogs need to be put on a leash.
As well they should. Never forget.