A deadly Israeli attack on a college in Gaza has renewed requires america to cease offering staunch help for Israel, together with weapons transfers that rights advocates say are fuelling atrocities within the Palestinian enclave.
The Gaza civil defence company stated greater than 100 Palestinians have been killed and dozens extra have been injured on Saturday when Israel launched an assault on al-Tabin faculty in Gaza Metropolis.
“The US & allies are claiming a ceasefire is close to. However all Palestinians see is extra loss of life, dislocation, & despair. The genocide continues,” James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, wrote on social media.
“It previous time to finish the charade. Israel doesn’t need peace or a ceasefire. Why are we nonetheless sending Israel weapons?”
The al-Tabin faculty assault comes as US President Joe Biden has faced months of public pressure to chop off the provision of weapons to Israel amid its struggle on Gaza, which has killed greater than 39,700 Palestinians since early October.
Israel receives at the least $3.8bn in US navy help yearly, and Biden signed off on $14bn in extra help to the US ally earlier this yr.
Rights groups also have documented Israel’s use of US-made weapons “in critical violations of worldwide humanitarian and human rights regulation, and in a fashion that’s inconsistent with US regulation and coverage” throughout the struggle.
However a US Division of State spokesperson introduced on Friday that Washington would ship an additional $3.5bn to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and navy gear.
On Saturday morning, CNN journalist Allegra Goodwin stated in a submit on X that the US information community had confirmed a “US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb” was used within the lethal Israeli assault on al-Tabin faculty. Al Jazeera couldn’t instantly confirm that report.
‘Ripped to items’
The assault on the college, which had served as a shelter for hundreds of displaced individuals, additionally comes amid a renewed push by the US, Qatar and Egypt to get Israel and Hamas to conform to a ceasefire settlement.
However specialists have stated continued Israeli assaults throughout Gaza threat derailing these efforts, with some accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of looking for to sabotage any doable deal to finish the struggle.
The Gaza City school attack was described by paramedics and others on the scene as horrific, with “our bodies ripped to items”.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, stated Palestinians sheltering inside the college compound have been praying when Israeli forces focused them with at the least three air assaults.
“The civil defence group stated that they have been capable of finding 100 lifeless our bodies, however they’re saying that there are extra our bodies nonetheless trapped. Many of the our bodies are so disfigured, they’re unable to recognise who these Palestinians are,” Khoudary stated.
“Individuals who survived this assault are saying that this is likely one of the worst days they witnessed for the reason that struggle began within the Gaza Strip.”
Israel has stated, with none proof, that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters have been working from the college – a declare that was rejected by Hamas.
On the identical day that @SecBlinken ordered new arms gross sales to Israel, @idf bombs a Gaza Metropolis faculty, killing 100. Victims ‘in items’. Pavlovian conditioning for a feral military. https://t.co/BWEtIxQOl7
— Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) August 10, 2024
‘No extra bomb shipments’
In the meantime, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged the US to finish its “blind help [for Israel] that results in the killing of hundreds of harmless civilians, together with youngsters, girls, and the aged”.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh stated in a press release that US weapons transfers to Israel made it “straight chargeable for this bloodbath [at al-Tabin school] and for the continuation of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip for the tenth month operating”, as reported by the Wafa information company.
US rights advocates additionally renewed their push for the Biden administration to finish its arms transfers to Israel following the college assault.
Sarah Leah Whitson, govt director of US-based advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now, criticised the arms gross sales as “Pavlovian conditioning for a feral military”.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US-Muslim civil rights organisation, also said the Gaza Metropolis assault deserves a critical response from the Biden administration.
“If President Biden offers a rattling about human life, he’ll reply to this act of state terrorism by instantly stopping the movement of weapons to the Israeli authorities and forcing Netanyahu to conform to the ceasefire deal that he retains sabotaging,” CAIR wrote on X.
“No extra requires Israel to research itself. No extra bomb shipments. This US-enabled genocide should finish now.”
Former Israeli authorities adviser Daniel Levy additionally instructed Al Jazeera on Saturday that the $3.5bn US navy finance bundle for Israel confirmed the “dishonesty and duplicity of the US administration”.
Levy stated Washington confirmed “humiliating weak point” when it acknowledged that Biden “acquired actually indignant” in a current name with Netanyahu, however then handed the Israeli prime minister one other $3.5bn in funding for weapons.
“We now have to see that it’s not simply weak point. It’s additionally ideological alignment. The US authorities is the guarantor of the axis of Zionist extremism,” Levy stated. “They could not like among the particulars, however that is what they’re backing.”
