Gaza authorities debunk list published by Israel claiming to have killed Palestinian gunmen in airstrike on UN-run school

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) - The Government Media Office in Gaza on Friday refuted allegations by the Israeli army that it killed Palestinian gunmen in an airstrike on a UN-run school sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Earlier, the army released a list of 17 names it claimed were members of Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, who gathered in a room in the school in the central Gaza Strip.

The Government Media Office said the Israeli list contains names of Palestinians who were killed before the attack Thursday in the Nuseirat refugee camp, including Majd Darweesh who was killed Wednesday by the army in the Maghazi refugee camp; Maher Fadel and Motasem Shaqra, both killed Wednesday in the Bureij refugee camp and Jamil al-Maqadma, an elderly man who died in 2017.

It added that the Israeli list includes three Palestinians who are still alive, including one who has been living abroad for years.

The Gaza-based media office also named 12 children killed in the attack in addition to the remains of two unknown children.

At least 40 displaced Palestinians were killed in the strike.

The deadly strike triggered widespread international and UN condemnations and outrage amid demands to investigate the attack.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, on Oct. 7, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 36,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 83,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar