Israeli forces have turned schools - which the displaced used as their last refuge - into mass graves, after systematically targeting many of them in the past few weeks, causing widespread destruction and numerous casualties.
The Israeli occupation forces are committing massacres inside schools, employing a new strategy that goes beyond targeting individual classrooms or side rooms. They are deliberately destroying large sections of these schools to keep them out of service and prevent the displaced from returning after significant damage.
On Saturday, Israel bombed Al-Tabaeen private school, which shelters about 1,800 displaced people, mostly from the destroyed Shujaiya neighborhood. Those had been forced to flee to the school a few days earlier after the occupation planes had destroyed two other schools.
Nermin Abed, who lost her husband Abdullah Al-Arair, among about 100 Palestinians who died in the attack, said that she could not believe that she saw her husband for the last time just moments before he left the classroom, where they were staying, to perform the dawn prayer inside a small prayer hall on the ground floor of the school.
Abed mourned her husband with tears, and collapsed several times when she was unable to accompany him to be buried, along with several others, in a temporary graveyard near the Shujaiya neighborhood.
Ahmed Abed, Nermin’s brother, told Asharq Al-Awsat that they arrived at Al-Tabaeen School after miraculously escaping Dalal Al-Maghribi School, which was bombed earlier this month.
“There is nowhere else to go. Every place in Gaza is a target,” he said.
In the Gaza Strip, government schools, those affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and private schools, have all been converted into shelters. Since the beginning of the war, 175 of these centers have been bombed, including 154 schools, resulting in the death of over 1,150 Palestinians, according to statistics from the Gaza government media office.
UNRWA confirmed that 190 of its buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely or partially destroyed, while two-thirds of its schools, which included displaced persons, saw the same fate.
Mohammad al-Jaabari, one of the survivors of the massacre who has lost at least 11 of his cousins, finds no place to shelter except these schools. He told Asharq al-Awsat: “This massacre was not and will not be the last, but give me a safe place to go to. They are targeting all schools in the north.”
The occupation has targeted seven schools housing displaced people since the beginning of this August, all in different areas of Gaza City, leaving at least 177 victims and dozens of injured.
Israel claims that it is targeting shelter centers, especially schools, under the pretext that they are used by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements to carry out attacks. However, numerous accounts backed by photos and videos reveal that many casualties are among women and children.
Hamas has denied the presence of gunmen in Al-Tabaeen School, and stated that there were strict instructions to ensure no fighters were among civilians.
