Rights group refutes Israel’s list of alleged targets in Gaza school attack

By Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said Sunday that a list provided by the Israeli army of alleged targets at Al-Tab'een School in Gaza City includes individuals who were killed in previous attacks and civilians who opposed Hamas.

At least 100 people were killed and several injured Saturday when Israeli aircraft targeted Palestinians performing fajr (dawn) prayers at the school in the Al-Daraj neighborhood.

The Israeli military claimed it killed 19 fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the attack, but the two groups strongly denied this.

Euro-Med, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Switzerland, said in a statement that its team's preliminary investigation found that “the Israeli army used names of Palestinians killed in Israeli raids—some of whom were killed in earlier raids—in its list, and took their photos from the Israeli-controlled civil registry.”

“Following the initial review, it was discovered that three of the 19 names listed by the Israeli army as ‘terrorists who were eliminated’ in the Al-Tab'een School massacre had already been killed in earlier Israeli bombing attacks,” it said.

They included “Ahmed Ihab al-Jaabari, who was killed on 5 December 2023, Youssef al-Wadiyya, who was targeted by the Israeli military two days prior to the massacre, and Montaser Daher, who was killed on Friday in a residential flat with his sister, one day prior to the massacre.”

According to the rights organization, “three elderly civilians who had no connection to the military action were also among the victims, including a school principal, Abdul Aziz Misbah Al-Kafarna, the deputy mayor of Beit Hanoun, and an academic and Arabic language teacher, Yousef Kahlout; and six civilians, some of whom were even Hamas opponents.”

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed nearly 39,800 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,000 others, according to local health authorities.

More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military 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.