Israel-Hamas war: At least 20 killed at school being used as shelter in Gaza, UN says
The UN says a school being used as a shelter has been damaged at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, leaving 20 people reportedly dead.
Five people are understood to have also been injured at the camp.
Sky News has verified footage showing many injured people at the school, but has been unable to identify the cause. We are awaiting a response from the Israeli military.
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The footage shows panic break out at the site, with some running from the scene.
One man is seen holding his hands behind his head, while a woman is spotted frantically looking around before holding a hand to her cheek, visibly shocked.
Another individual is seen limping towards a wall with the help of another person.
Panic at Jabalia Refugee Camp
The sound of an ambulance siren joins shouts from the crowd, as the vehicle is briefly seen entering the gates to the school.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it came “after two days of heavy bombardments in the area.”
“Earlier today, another shelter at Beach Refugee Camp was also damaged, with one child reportedly killed. Both locations are in the north of the Gaza Strip,” it added.
“Further south, two schools-turned-shelters in the Al Bureij Refugee Camp were hit. Two people were reportedly killed and 31 injured.”
The UN reported that since 7 October, nearly 50 UNRWA buildings and assets have been impacted, with some being directly hit.
This includes buildings being used as shelters that are currently hosting around 700,000 people, the UNRWA said in a statement.
“Across the Gaza Strip, these shelters should be a safe haven, under the flag of the United Nations. International humanitarian law leaves no doubt that civilians and civilian facilities must be protected,” it said.
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“To date, 72 UNRWA colleagues have been killed in Gaza since the war began, often with their families.
“How many more? How much more grief and suffering? A humanitarian ceasefire is overdue for the sake of humanity.”
A Palestinian boy weeps at a camp in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) earlier justified attacks on buildings such as hospitals, schools and mosques in Gaza by claiming Hamas uses the sites for operational purposes.
IDF posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, on 27 October which asked: “Where are Hamas’s headquarters? Are they under a school? A university? A mosque? A hospital?
It then claims the answer is “all of the above”.
The footage of the damage caused to the UN school also emerged after 15 people were killed when Israel struck the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday.
Residents said dozens of people remained trapped under the rubble, with the blast creating a large crater and severely damaging buildings around the camp.
It came days after dozens were killed when Israel carried out a strike on a refugee camp in Jabalia, north of Gaza City.
Israel said it killed Ibrahim Biari, commander of Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion, in the strike.
Biari was one of the leaders of the massacres in Israel on 7 October and had also been the “main leader” of Hamas’s combat operations since Israeli forces entered Gaza, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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