The Israeli army says it will now close its file on the deadly shelling of a UN school in Gaza during the 2014 Gaza war because it claims that its military did nothing wrong. That’s strange. The shelling of the UN school in the southern Gaza town of Rafah killed 16 Palestinians. The attack was condemned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a “moral outrage” and a “criminal act”, was condemned by the US State Department as “disgraceful” and “appalling” and French President Francois Hollande said the bombing was “unacceptable” and called for those responsible to “answer for their actions”. And yet Israel insists no wrongdoing was ever found.
The school, the Rafah Preparatory A Boys School, was located in a densely populated neighborhood and was sheltering more than 3,000 people displaced by fighting in the area. At the time of the strike – at around 10:50 am local time – dozens of children and adults were clustered around the gates buying biscuits and sweets from stalls set up by locals while people were lined up to get food from aid workers. The missile struck the ground eight to 10 meters from the open gates. Amid the chaos there were multiple dead and injuries inside and outside the school. The dead included a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who lived near the school and had been selling biscuits. The strike killed at least one UN staffer, a UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site.
The Israeli Defense Force said it had fired an aerial-launched missile at a motorcycle which had been carrying three fighters from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It said by the time it became apparent that the strike would hit the motorcycle passing by the school gate, it had no longer been possible to divert the missile.
Though there was no evidence that the school was an origin point for any Hamas rockets or fighters, the Israeli military had contacted the UN and told it that the compound would be attacked by Israel. The UN replied that it would need time to move the large number of refugees sheltering there. But the UN never heard back from the Israeli army.
Israeli spokesmen had previously blamed poorly aimed or malfunctioning Hamas mortar fire or rockets for several such incidents. But it is outrageous that Israeli media spokesmen attempted to assert or imply that the school was hit by Hamas rockets. They were lying, pure and simple, because the Israeli generals had already told the UN that they were going to shell the school.
The school was one of more than 90 shelters run by the UN in Gaza to provide a safe haven to Palestinians fleeing the fighting. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army. But when they did and found a place to shelter, they were hit all the same.
The report by the Military Advocate General’s examination concluded that proper procedures were followed. It listed among the casualties the three Hamas operatives but did not bother to mention the 16 Palestinians who were killed and the 200 injured. It would only say that while it was a regrettable result that civilians who were uninvolved in the hostilities were harmed, it did not affect the legality of the attack “ex post facto”.
So, the Palestinian children who died were reduced to a law term, “from a thing done afterward”. Translation: the attack was legal when it was originally performed. After that, too bad.
It was no coincidence that soon thereafter, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire for Saturday (though it had already violated the ceasefire by Saturday morning). Although the images of dead children and of reckless and illegal shelling of civilian structures piled up on the world’s consciousness, it obviously made no difference.
