Targeting Schools Sheltering Displaced People
Ten months into the conflict, the Israeli army is still attacking Gaza's schools, which are shelters for the displaced. At the same time, it is ordering illegal forced evacuations, driving people from northern Gaza to the southern part of the territory. This is a part of a deliberate strategy to drive people out of their houses and safe havens, depriving them of any security or sanctuary.
Over the course of eight days, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed nine schools in Gaza City that were serving as shelters for thousands of displaced Palestinians, killing many inside, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Dozens of Palestinians have died as a result of this, hundreds more—mostly women and children—have been injured, and some have vanished beneath the debris, leaving rescue crews unable to find them because they lack the necessary tools.
According to the monitor, the most recent of these strikes took place on Thursday, August 8, at 3 PM, when Israeli planes struck the "Al-Zahraa" and "Abdel Fattah Hamouda" schools in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Al-Tuffah. Both of these schools provided shelter to thousands of displaced people. 17 civilians lost their lives in this incident, 16 went missing, and numerous others—many of them women and children—were injured. Thirty Palestinians were killed and nineteen injured when Israeli planes bombarded the "Al-Nasr" and "Hassan Salameh" schools in Gaza City on Sunday, August 4. The previous day, 17 Palestinians were killed and 60 others were injured when Israeli planes targeted a group of four classrooms that were being utilized as shelters in the Sheikh Radwan district. Israeli aircraft struck the "Dalal Al-Maghribi" school in the eastern Gaza district of Al-Shujaiya on the first day of the month, killing fifteen Palestinians and wounding twenty-nine more.
Bombing and demolishing schools above the heads of internally displaced people is not justified. This criminal occupation's sole goal is to rob Palestinians of the few places left where they can find refuge following the 10 months of methodical demolition of infrastructure, houses, and shelters. By destroying all means of subsistence in the region and killing innocent civilians, the intention is to force individuals to forcibly relocate from their homes and inflict forced displacement on the people of Gaza.