Rights group documents rising number of schools-turned-shelters struck by Israel

According to a statement by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, since the beginning of August, Israel has bombed 16 schools used as shelters in the Gaza Strip, killing 217 Palestinians and injuring hundreds – many of them women and children.

The Israeli military has also escalated its targeting of civilians over the past week in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates by bombing residential homes, gatherings, and commercial stands, as well as shelter centers and their surroundings, the statement said.

In the most recent aggression, the Swiss-based group says its field team has documented Israeli air strikes at midnight on Saturday, targeting the Halimah al-Saadiyah School in Jabalia Al-Nazla, north of the Gaza Strip. The building was sheltering hundreds of forcibly displaced people. The attack killed four Palestinians and injured others.

Earlier on Saturday, Israeli aircraft also bombed Amr Ibn al-Aas School, another shelter for displaced people north of Gaza City, killing four Palestinians, including a child.

"Targeting and destroying schools on top of the displaced has no legitimate justification and constitutes a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and the obligation to take necessary precautions," the group said.

"Preliminary investigations by our field team indicate that the occupation army is deliberately destroying what remains of shelter centers in the Strip, including schools and public facilities, with the aim of creating a coercive environment that forces civilians to leave their homes and displace toward central and southern Gaza," the group said.

"These attacks are part of the actual implementation of genocide in Gaza and aim to depopulate the Palestinian land by killing and forcibly displacing as many Palestinians as possible," it added.

Elsewhere in the statement, the Geneva-based organization said that the complicity of the United States and its allies had emboldened Israel to press ahead with its months-long genocidal campaign in Gaza.

"The complicity of Washington and many European countries, amid international silence and failure to take effective measures to stop the crime of genocide, encourages Israel to continue its plans for the genocide of Palestinians through direct and indirect killing and forced displacement," it said.

"We call for the accountability and prosecution of the countries complicit with and partners of Israel in committing crimes, including those providing assistance and engaging in contractual relationships in military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other fields that may contribute to the continuation of these crimes."

Schools in the Gaza Strip have been used to shelter nearly two million displaced Palestinians, since Israel launched its campaign of death and destruction in Gaza on October 7.