EU top diplomat urges end to ‘madness’ after Gaza school strike

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Saturday (27 July) called for a “political solution” to end the “madness” in Gaza after the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

At least 30 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, an attack that Israel said targeted militants who were using the compound.

The Hamas-run government media office said 15 children and eight women were among those killed in the strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah. More than 100 people were wounded, the media office and the Gaza health ministry said.

“Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness,” Borrell said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In another post, he said “yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younis… At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.

The latest strike, which Israel said targeted “terrorists”, was at least the eighth time since 6 July a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.

With most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war started by Hamas’s 7 October attack, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday.

Israel vows revenge for Hezbollah deadly strike

A rocket attack on a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 12 people including children on Saturday, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to inflict a heavy price on the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the strike, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

The attack sharply escalated tensions in the hostilities which have been fought in parallel to the Gaza war and has raised fears of a full-blown conflict between the heavily armed adversaries.

The rocket struck a football pitch in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.

“Hezbollah will pay a heavy price, the kind it has thus far not paid,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a phone call with the leader of the Druze community in Israel, according to a statement from his office.

In a written statement, Hezbollah said: “The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard”.

Hezbollah had earlier announced several rocket attacks targeting Israeli military positions.

The Israeli ambulance service said 13 more people were wounded by the rocket that hit the soccer pitch which was filled at the time with children and teenagers.

The United States, which has been leading diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border, condemned it as a horrific attack and said U.S. support for Israel’s security was “iron-clad and unwavering against all Iranian backed terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah”.

The United States “will continue to support efforts to end these terrible attacks along the Blue Line, which must be a top priority,” the spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in a statement. The Blue Line refers to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

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