Israel says it hit Hamas command in school, drawing US criticism

A deadly Israeli strike on Gaza City that drew international condemnation was aimed at a Hamas “command and control center” embedded within a school and adjacent mosque, Israel’s military said.

Hamas authorities in Gaza estimated about 100 people were killed in Saturday’s missile attack. The figures couldn’t be independently verified and Hamas authorities don’t distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s running to replace President Joe Biden in the White House in November, rebuked Israel for civilian casualties while affirming its “right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas.”

“Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed,” she told reporters Saturday during a campaign swing in the Western U.S. “We need a hostage deal, and we need a cease-fire. The deal needs to get done, and it needs to get done now.”

The Israel Defense Forces said about 20 “Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, including senior commanders,” were embedded within the Al-Taba’een school. They were using the compound “to carry out terrorist attacks,” IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani said on the X social media site.

The casualty estimate provided by Hamas didn’t align with “the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike,” Shoshani said.

The U.S. is seeking “further details” from Israeli officials about the strike, Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council, said in a statement.

Several European and Middle Eastern countries condemned Saturday’s strike along with Israel’s repeated targeting of school buildings. The U.S. said it was seeking further details on the attack, while calling on Israel to take measures to “minimize civilian harm.”

“Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on X. “At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There’s no justification for these massacres.”

France condemned the strike “in the firmest of terms.” The foreign ministry of Qatar, which along with the U.S. and Egypt has been trying to get a new round of cease-fire talks going, called the bombing a “brutal crime against defenseless civilians.” Turkey said the attack showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “intends to sabotage the negotiations for a permanent cease-fire.”

The school was located adjacent to a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for the residents of Gaza, said the IDF. Local Gaza authorities said the dead included women and children who were sheltering in the school.

The attack is one of the deadliest in the Israel-Hamas war, now into its 11th month, and the high death toll is expected to hinder international attempts to resume cease-fire talks between the two sides.

The U.S., Qatar and Egypt have called for a new round of talks on Aug. 15, the latest attempt by the Biden administration to end the war in Gaza even as the region braces for an expected Iranian attack on Israel. Israel has said it will send a delegation, while Hamas has yet to respond.

The three nations have been pressuring the two sides for months, urging both Israel and Hamas militants to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip that has killed roughly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the coastal strip. Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, is designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union.

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(With assistance from Dan Williams and Akayla Gardner.)

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