Israeli forces have struck four schools in Gaza in four days, killing at least 50 Palestinians and injuring dozens more as the UN reports that the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed at least two-thirds of Gaza’s schools since October.
The latest attack came on Tuesday, when Israeli forces killed 29 Palestinians at a shelter for displaced people near a school in Khan Yunis — an area that Israel instructed Palestinians to flee to in recent evacuation orders.
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 16 and injured over 75 others at a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Nuseirat refugee camp. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a Gaza City school, killing four, including one Palestinian government official. And on Monday, Israel struck near a UNRWA school in Nuseirat, seemingly a separate school in the neighborhood, sending multiple people to the hospital.
The Israeli military claimed that they were striking “terrorist infrastructure” in attacks on Gaza City. A horrifying video published by Al Jazeera from the Tuesday strike on the Khan Yunis school, meanwhile, shows Palestinians playing soccer in the tightly packed school yard at the time Israel struck the facility, with the scene rapidly erupting into terror. The video shows bodies scattered around the yard, and witnesses said that there were body parts strewn everywhere after the bombing.
The New York Times identified a bomb used at the site as a U.S.-made GBU-39, a “small diameter” bomb that Israel has used extensively in its genocidal assault.
In all, Israeli attacks on schools have killed at least 50 Palestinians in the past four days alone.
Israel’s streak of school strikes comes after its military struck yet another UN-run school last Thursday in Nuseirat, killing 40 people. That strike, CNN reported, used two of the U.S.-made GBU-39s.
“Since the war began, two thirds of UNRWA schools in Gaza have been hit, some were bombed out, many severely damaged,” UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini said. “Nine months in, under our watch, the relentless, endless killings, destruction and despair continue.”
Children in Gaza haven’t been able to attend school since Israel began its current genocidal campaign in October, with 600,000 children being deprived of the education they need for healthy development. Most of the schools in Gaza, including UN-run facilities, have been turned into shelters for Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced by the genocide or Israel’s decades of ethnic cleansing.
“Gaza is no place for children. The blatant disregard of international humanitarian law cannot become the new normal,” Lazzarini continued.
The UN noted that Israel’s strikes on schools have become “commonplace” amid Israel’s assault. Indeed, this is at least the second time in a month that Israel has attacked schools multiple days in a row. In June, Israeli forces bragged about striking a UN school near Gaza City, killing at least three Palestinians and injuring 15, the day after bombing a UN school in Nuseirat, killing at least 40, including 14 children.
Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s education system, as well as the genocide at large, is endangering the futures of an entire generation of Palestinians, the UN warned.
“If this war continues, we are on the verge of losing a whole generation of children,” said UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma. “The longer children stay out of school, the more difficult it is for them to catch up on education losses; the higher the risk that they fall prey to exploitation, including child labour, child marriage, but also recruitment into armed groups, and recruitment into the fighting. So it is for the sake of those children that we must have a ceasefire.”
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