Arab leaders call for international accountability amid Israeli strikes on UNRWA-aided schools

Arab leaders are stressing the need to activate international accountability mechanisms in the face of Israel’s continued aggressions, which include the bombing of UN agency-aided schools and “safe zones”, as they renewed calls for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

On July 16, Israel’s military bombed a United Nations-run school as well as a “safe zone” it designated in the Gaza Strip, in attacks that left at least 42 Palestinians dead and wounded dozens.

The strikes hit the UN’s al-Razi school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and a main street lined with market stalls in the southern al-Mawasi area, where thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought shelter.

At least 25 people were killed in al-Razi while 17 were killed in al-Mawasi, according to Gaza’s government media office, while more than 70 people were wounded in the attacks.

Earlier the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), noted that 70 percent of its schools in Gaza have been hit and bombed since the start of the conflict last Oct 7.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on his X account that at least eight schools were hit in the last 10 days, including six UNRWA-aided schools.

“Schools must never be used for fighting or military purposes by any party to the conflict. Schools are not a target,” he noted.

“All rules of war have been broken in Gaza. Losing our common humanity must not become the new norm,” said Lazzarini.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that based on precise intelligence, the IDF struck “terrorists” who operated in an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat.

The international organization Save the Children said on its X account that the recent attacks on schools and hospitals in Gaza were “horrific” as the “healthcare and education systems are being decimated before our eyes”.

Children “cannot continue to be at the forefront of this conflict”, it said, reiterating that hospitals and schools should never be targets.

The Saudi Cabinet, led by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, condemned the “continuation of genocidal massacres against the Palestinian people”, reiterating the demand for an immediate and permanent cease-fire and protection of unarmed civilians, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Further, Riyadh stressed the necessity of activating international accountability mechanisms “for the continuous Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and international legitimacy resolutions”.

Speaking to reporters at a joint press conference during his visit to Luxembourg on July 16, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urged the US, the EU, and the global community to “come together and stand by international law, international humanitarian law, and by the rights of all peoples to live in peace and security, including the Palestinians”.

“Israel is not listening to anybody. It is not even listening to its own closest allies. It’s not listening even on issues of allowing aid, allowing food and medicine to children who are dying from malnutrition, and from not having medicine,” noted Safadi, as he called for the UN Security Council to adopt a “Chapter 7” resolution, which would initiate actions “to put an end to the war”.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi briefed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call on July 16 on Egypt’s mediation efforts between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, while stressing the need for uniting international efforts to ensure the success of mediation and to deliver adequate humanitarian aid into the battered Palestinian enclave.

Egyptian and Qatari mediators, as well as US negotiators, reconvened over the past week in hopes of coming to a cease-fire agreement, which would include the swapping of prisoners between Israel and Hamas, but blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the delay over his “new conditions”.

Belal Alakhras, a political analyst and Palestinian researcher at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, noted that the “issue” was that the world “has treated Israel as more than just an occupying force” as Israel leaders see “normal international relations” as a green light to treat Gaza like a “killing field”.

“We’re on the edge of global chaos. This situation shouldn’t be left to the calculus of the United States on whether it will allow Israel to continue this war or not. Other major global powers need to step up and ramp up pressure before it’s too late,” Alakhras told China Daily.

Contact the writers at jan@chinadailyapac.com