Spain intervenes in genocide case as Israeli strike hits Gaza school

Spain will request to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, its foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Thursday.

Spain follows Ireland, which also announced it would intervene in the case.

"We are doing it because of our commitment to international law, in our desire to support the court in its work and strengthen the United Nations, supporting the role of the court as the maximum legal entity in the system," Albares said in a press conference held in Madrid.

Israel hit a Gaza school on Thursday in an airstrike that it said targeted and killed Hamas fighters inside, while a Hamas official said 40 people including women and children were killed as they sheltered in the U.N. site.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office, rejected Israel's assertion that the U.N. school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, had hidden a Hamas command post.

"The occupation uses ... false fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people," Thawabta said.

Israel's military said it had taken steps to protect civilians before its fighter jets carried out a "precise strike", circulating satellite photos highlighting two parts of a building where it said the fighters were based.

"We're very confident in the intelligence," military spokesperson Lt Col. Peter Lerner told a briefing with reporters, accusing Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters of deliberately using U.N. facilities as operational bases.

He said 20-30 fighters were located in the compound, and many of them had been killed, but had no precise details as intelligence assessments were being carried out. "I'm not aware of any civilian casualties and I'd be very, very cautious of accepting anything that Hamas puts out," he said.

The school, run by the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), may have been hit several times, said the agency's communications director, Juliette Touma.

She said she could not confirm the death toll at this stage. Media in Hamas-run Gaza had earlier put the toll at 35-40. Thawabta and a medical source said 40 had been killed, including 14 children and nine women.

Israel announced a new military campaign in central Gaza on Wednesday as it battles fighters relying on hit-and-run insurgency tactics. It says there will be no halt to fighting during ceasefire talks, which have intensified since U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a proposal last Friday.

Since a week-long truce in November, all attempts to arrange a ceasefire have failed with each side blaming the other.

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Meanwhile, a conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah is threatening to escalate, with the U.S. State Department warning against a full-blown war.

Although Biden described the ceasefire proposal as an Israeli offer, Israel's government has been lukewarm in public. A top Netanyahu aide confirmed on Sunday that Israel had made the proposal even though it was "not a good deal".

Far-right members of Netanyahu's government have pledged to quit if he agrees to a peace deal that leaves Hamas in place, a move that could force a new election and end the political career of Israel's longest-serving leader.

Centrist opponents who joined Netanyahu's war cabinet in a show of unity at the outset of the conflict have also threatened to quit, saying his government has no plan.

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