Germany says Israeli strike on Gaza school killing 100 Palestinian civilians was ‘self-defence’

Berlin (Quds News Network)- Germany said “Israel has the right to defend itself” in response to Israel’s bombing of a school in Gaza which killed more than 100 displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering there on Saturday.

At least 100 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were killed at dawn after Israeli forces targeted the Tab’een school, located in Gaza City’s al-Daraj district, whilst displaced people performed Fajr morning prayers.

Videos shared on social media showed charred bodies and limbs strewn across a concrete floor, as people scrambled to find their loved ones following the attacks.

Gaza’s civil defense described the attacks as a “horrific massacre” and said three Israeli rockets struck the school, including at least one MK-84 missile.

The civil defence said the rockets targeted two floors of the school, with the first striking an area inhabited by displaced women, and the second hitting the ground floor area that was used as a prayer hall.

Mohammed al-Mughair, director of the supply department of Gaza’s civil defence authority, said the school was housing around 2,400 displaced Palestinians.

When asked about Germany’s response to Israel’s targeting of the school at a press conference in Berlin on Monday, government deputy spokesman Wolfgang Buechner said “Israel has the right to defend itself,” according to Anadolu news agency.

“The reality is that Hamas uses schools, hospitals, kindergartens as command centres and that the people in the Gaza Strip are also abused against their will as protective [human] shields,” Buechner claimed, and warned of “one-sided reports that are distributed by Hamas” and not “believing everything that is spread by this side.”

The Israeli military was quick to take responsibility for the attack on the school, claiming in a statement that it targeted a “command and control center” that “served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders.” It did not provide any evidence to back up the claim.

It claimed the prayer hall contained a “military facility” and that 31 of those killed were “terrorists” who belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and were operating from school. The statement contains the names and images of the 31 Palestinians.

However, initial investigations by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found no proof or indication of any military operations or combatants at the Tab’een School and the list of the names included several inaccuracies.

The list included at least three people who had been killed in strikes earlier in the war and the names of three elderly people who had no military ties, including a school principal, the deputy mayor of Beit Hanoun and a university professor, as well as several Hamas opponents.

The list also included the name of a child under 12 years old, who, according to civil records, resides in Jenin in the West Bank.

Among the names in the new list is Naim Al-Jaabari, whom the Israeli army claimed to have targeted and killed in the school massacre. However, it was found that Naim is still alive.

Recent data by UNICEF indicates that half of schools used as shelters in Gaza have been directly hit in the last 10 months of the war. Satellite imagery has shown that 85 percent of school buildings (477 out of 564) were directly hit (344) or damaged (133).