Israel attacks four schools in the Gaza Strip within four days and kills 50 people

In four days, Israeli forces have attacked four schools in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 50 Palestinians and wounding dozens more. According to UN reports, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed at least two-thirds of the schools in the Gaza Strip since October.

The latest attack came on Tuesday, when Israeli forces killed 29 Palestinians in a shelter for displaced people near a school in Khan Yunis – an area to which Israel had ordered Palestinians to flee in recent evacuation orders.

On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 75 others at a UNRWA school in Nuseirat refugee camp. On Sunday, Israeli forces attacked a school in Gaza City, killing four people, including a Palestinian government official. And on Monday, Israel attacked near a UNRWA school in Nuseirat, apparently another school in the neighborhood, sending several people to hospital.

The Israeli military claimed that it had attacked “terrorist infrastructure” in its attacks on Gaza City. A chilling video posted by Al-Jazeera A video of the attack on the Khan Yunis school on Tuesday shows Palestinians playing soccer in the crowded schoolyard as Israel attacked the facility, and the scene quickly erupts in terror. The video shows bodies scattered throughout the yard, and witnesses said body parts were strewn everywhere after the bombing.

The New York Times A bomb used at the site was identified as an American-made GBU-39, a “small diameter” bomb that Israel used extensively in its genocide.

In total, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on schools in the last four days alone.

Israel’s series of school strikes comes after the military attacked another UN school in Nuseirat last Thursday, killing 40 people. The attack, CNN Two US-made GBU-39s were reportedly used.

“Since the war began, two-thirds of UNRWA schools in Gaza have been hit, some bombed out, many badly damaged,” said UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini. “Nine months after we began monitoring, the relentless, endless killing, destruction and despair continue.”

Since Israel began its genocide in October, children in Gaza have been unable to attend school. 600,000 children are deprived of the education they need for healthy development. Most schools in Gaza, including those run by the UN, have been converted into shelters for Palestinians forcibly displaced by the genocide or Israel’s decades-long ethnic cleansing.

“Gaza is no place for children. The blatant disregard for international humanitarian law must not become the new normal,” Lazzarini continued.

The UN noted that Israel’s attacks on schools have become “commonplace” in the wake of Israeli attacks. In fact, this is at least the second time in a month that Israel has attacked schools for several days in a row. In June, Israeli forces boasted of attacking a UN school near Gaza City, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding 15. A day earlier, they bombed a UN school in Nuseirat, killing at least 40 people, including 14 children.

The United Nations warned that Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s education system and the genocide as a whole are endangering the future of an entire generation of Palestinians.

“If this war continues, we are on the verge of losing a whole generation of children,” said Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s communications director. “The longer children are out of school, the more difficult it is for them to catch up on lost education; the greater the risk that they will become victims of exploitation, including child labour, child marriage, but also recruitment into armed groups and recruitment into combat. That is why we need a ceasefire for the benefit of these children.”