‘Is there any humanity left?’ UNRWA chief condemns Israeli attack targeting Gaza school
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has condemned Israel’s raid on a UNRWA school in Gaza City, the latest in a series of deadly Israeli attacks on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
“Is there any humanity left? Reports of another horrific attack today on one of our UNRWA schools in Gaza City. Children reported killed and injured. Some were burnt to death,” Lazzarini said in a post on X.
“Gaza is no place for children anymore. They are the first casualty of this merciless war. We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. Enough. A ceasefire is beyond over due.”
Protracted military operations & repeated evacuation orders have forced families in the #GazaStrip to flee again & again.
Many are seeking shelter in parts of Al Mawasi, where around 30,000 people are packed into every km². Before the war, there were only 1,200 per km² - @UNOCHA pic.twitter.com/SK4UvwbhLN
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 21, 2024
That's equivalent to the population density in Kolkata, India
Except all in tents on the ground without any amenities.
Banks across Gaza forced to suspend operations
The Association of Banks in Palestine, a group that represents banks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, said that banks across Gaza have suspended operations.
The news comes amid deteriorating conditions in Gaza, a result of Israel’s destructive campaign that has erased entire neighbourhoods, displaced nearly the entire population and targeted key civilian infrastructure.
The Associated Press reported that Bashar Yasin, the association’s general manager, confirmed the closures.
Displaced people in Gaza, whose economy has been devastated by the war, have struggled to access necessities such as food and water amid widespread Israeli rejection of humanitarian assistance into the Strip.
Report accuses Israel of systematic torture of Palestinian children
The civil society group Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) has released a report documenting what they say is an Israeli policy of “systematically detaining and torturing Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, including using some as human shields”.
The report is the latest to document widespread torture and abuse of Palestinians, thousands of whom have been rounded up and detained by Israel without charge since October 7.
“They insulted us, slapped me on my face, and kicked me in my stomach and waist. I almost died from the beating,” Karim, a 12-year-old who was stripped and bound by Israeli forces in Gaza, is quoted as saying. “Then they made us walk in front of bulldozers and tanks in the streets so that the resistance wouldn’t target them.”
DCIP says it has recorded at least 31 cases of Palestinian children being used as human shields by Israeli forces since 2000.
The report also quotes a 14-year-old boy named Shadi who says Israeli forces detained him after shooting into a crowd of Palestinians awaiting food assistance in Gaza in March.
“They stripped us of our clothes, blindfolded us, tied us up, and beat us over our heads. They cursed us with filthy insults, saying things like, ‘You hungry ones, let Hamas feed you, you filthy, lice-ridden ones,'” he said. “It was humiliation in every sense of the word.”
