The director of Gaza’s government media office has disputed Israeli claims that 17 members of Hamas were killed in an attack on a UN school where forcibly displaced Palestinians were sheltering.
The Israeli attack on 6 June, which targeted the school located in central Gaza’s Nuseirat area, killed at least 45 Palestinians, including several children. Many of the bodies were taken to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital nearby.
Israel’s military alleged that the school was being used as a militant base and that fighters for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) used the classrooms to plan and conduct operations against Israel.
Following the attack, an Israeli military spokesperson said on Thursday that he was "not aware of any civilian casualties" due to the strike. On Friday, the military released the names of eight Hamas and PIJ members killed, bringing the number of fighters to 17.
According to news site Arabi21, the director of the Gaza government media office criticised the Israeli claim, quickly refuting it.
"The Israeli occupation army spreads false information, lies and misleads public opinion by publishing the names of those it claims to have killed in the Nuseirat massacre. The list includes people who are alive, and people killed on different areas and locations, not in Nuseirat," he said.
The director added that the list of names published by the Israeli military contains three people who are still alive, with one of them having been based abroad for years, no longer living in Palestine.
Others on the list, he said, were killed in other locations and on different dates, including Jamil Al-Maqadmeh, who died of natural causes in 2017.
"We condemn the Israel media’s false narrative that justifies the brutal crimes of the occupation," he said, adding that the US is also responsible for the “ongoing crimes against Palestinians".
The New Arab could not independently verify these statements.
Around 6,000 people were living in the school, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the director of the UN aid agency for refugees, UNRWA.
The strike caused widespread devastation and critically wounded dozens of civilians.
UNRWA has called for an investigation into the attack.
Ayman Rashed, a displaced resident from Gaza city, said he helped carry five bodies, including an old man and two children, from the wreckage.
"It was dark, with no electricity and we struggled to get out the victims," he told AP, adding that the blast had shattered one child’s skull open.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 36,000 Palestinians since October and wounded at least 83,000 others in the same period.
The brutal onslaught has levelled entire neighbourhoods and wreaked havoc on the enclave’s infrastructure.
