TEHRAN - Israel’s brutal attack on a Gaza City school housing displaced Palestinians has sparked widespread outrage and condemnation across the world.

Many countries as well as Palestinian and international organizations have expressed their shock at the strike on the al-Tabin school in Daraj district which killed over 100 people, including women and children. 

Horrific crime 

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement denounced the Israeli carnage as a horrific crime. 

“The massacre at al-Tabin school in the Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City is a horrific crime that constitutes a dangerous escalation,” Hamas said in a statement. 

The statement said Israel’s claims of the school being used as Hamas’ command center are “excuses to target civilians, schools, hospitals, and refugee tents, all of which are false pretexts and exposed lies to justify its crimes”.

Hamas called on Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to “fulfill their responsibilities and take urgent action to stop these massacres and halt the escalating Zionist aggression against our people and defenseless citizens.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office also called on the international community and United Nations Security Council to pressure Israel to end this “cascading bloodbath”. 

US complicity 

A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack in Daraj district and took a jab at the United States for supporting Israel. 

Nabil Abu Rudeineh called on the US to put an end to “blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly”.

He noted that “this heinous crime” comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s allocation of $3.5m to Israel for weapons, making Washington “directly responsible for this massacre, and for the continuation of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip for the tenth month running”.

Heinous bloody massacre

The Palestinian Fatah movement slammed the Israeli strike as a “heinous bloody massacre” that represents the “peak of terrorism and criminality”.

The Ramallah-based movement added in a statement, “Committing these massacres confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt its (Israel’s) efforts to exterminate our people through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble.” 

Israeli genocide 

The United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza. 

Francesca Albanese described Gaza as "the largest and most shameful concentration camp of the 21st century."

"Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one 'safe zone' at the time,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Albanese pointed to the use of US and European weapons in Israeli attacks in Gaza, expressing dismay at what she termed the "indifference of all civilized nations'" to the situation in the Palestinian territory.

“May the Palestinians forgive us for our collective inability to protect them, honoring the most basic meaning of (international) law,” Albanese said.

Extension of brutal massacres 

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) described the Israeli attack on the school as “an extension of the brutal massacres and genocide committed by the Israeli occupation for more than ten months in the Gaza Strip.”

The OIC urged the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to oblige the regime to respect its obligations as an occupying power under international law and provide protection to Palestinians.

Horrors must end 

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees also reacted to the Israeli carnage in Gaza City. 

“It’s time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end. We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X. 

He added, “Schools, UN facilities and civilian infrastructure are not a target”. 

No justification for massacres

The EU foreign policy chief expressed horror at the deadly strike on the school. 

“Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike, with reportedly dozens of Palestinian victims. At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks.

There’s no justification for these massacres,” Josep Borrell wrote on X.

New crime against humanity

The Turkish Foreign Ministry came down hard on Israel for the deadly bombing of the school in Gaza City describing it as a “new crime against humanity”. 

“This attack demonstrated once again that the Netanyahu government intends to sabotage the negotiations for a permanent ceasefire,” the ministry said in a statement.

It noted, “International actors who do not take steps to stop Israel are complicit in Israel's crimes.”

Human catastrophe 

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said Israel’s strike on the school violates “all humanitarian values” and is “an indication of the Israeli government’s attempt to block [peace] efforts and postpone them”.

The ministry said “the absence of a decisive international stance to restrain Israeli aggression and compel it to respect international law and stop its aggression against Gaza” was resulting in unprecedented killings, deaths and human catastrophe”.

Brutal attack 

The Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the attack on the school “constitutes a horrific massacre and a brutal crime against displaced unarmed civilians and their fundamental rights under international humanitarian law and the 2610 resolution of the UN Security Council”.

The ministry also renewed its calls for an “urgent international investigation that includes sending independent UN investigators” into Israel’s targeting of schools in the Gaza Strip.

Mass massacres 

Saudi Arabia also spoke out against the bombing of the al-Tabin school. 

The Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry condemned the strike in the “strongest terms”, stressing that “mass massacres” in Gaza “need to stop”.

It added that Gaza is “experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe due to the ongoing violations of international law”. 

Stop the Israeli killing machine!

The Syrian Foreign Ministry also denounced the Israeli attack on the school as a massacre. 

The ministry said, “Israel has been continuing to commit crimes of genocide against the defenseless Palestinian people for more than ten months amidst a state of international inability and paralysis to take any action to stop the Israeli killing machine due to the Western protection for this criminal entity”. 

Disregard for intl. law

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called the strike on the school an “unprecedented disregard for international law and international humanitarian law”.

“The ongoing large-scale crimes and the deliberate killing of these vast numbers of innocent civilians, especially amidst intensified efforts by mediators to achieve a ceasefire, is undeniable proof of Israel’s lack of political will to end this brutal war,” the ministry said in a statement. 

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, some Western countries have issued toughly worded statements criticizing deadly strikes in the territory. 

Some of the regional countries which have overt and covert ties with Israel have also denounced Israeli brutalities. 

Nonetheless, they have taken no action to stop the regime’s appalling atrocities.

Issuing statements are just aimed at appeasing domestic opposition to the Israeli carnage in Gaza over the past 10 months. 

If Western and regional countries were opposed to Israel’s crimes in Gaza, they would sever ties with the regime or at least impose sanctions on the apartheid regime.