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Israeli air strikes hit several UNRWA schools where people had taken refuge, and the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 23 people were killed, many of them women and children, and more than 70 others were injured.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Israel has again attacked a UN school in Gaza that is housing displaced families. Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants, who it says have recently shifted some of their operations from tunnels to schools. Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 23 people have been killed, many of them women and children, and more than 70 others have been wounded. NPR’s Jane Arraf in Beirut and producer Anas Baba in Gaza reported the news with an alert – which included graphic descriptions of the violence.
(Sound of machine running)
JANE ALLAF, BYLINE: NPR’s Anas Baba arrived at Razi School in Nuserat half an hour after the airstrike. Smoke was still rising from the classroom.
(metal clanging)
ARAAF: Bulldozers cleared away shattered concrete and twisted metal. Family members searched the rubble for anything they could salvage – clothes, a bottle of cooking oil. A survivor said the dead included a barber and the little boy he was cutting. A little girl was killed by shrapnel as she walked to the bathroom, he said.
NOOR BASAR: (Speaking non-English).
ALAF: Fourteen-year-old Noor Basar’s best friend was killed. She said they were born just 10 days apart.
NOUR: (in a non-English language).
ARAFF: “She was happy. She was laughing with us,” she said. The girl said she closed her eyes when the attack happened. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was blood pouring from her friend’s body. Abdul Baset Jamal was also at the school at the time. He saw the bodies of six people he knew. He listed their last names.
ABDUL BASET JAMAAL: (Speaking in a language other than English).
ALAF: Families have been displaced in Gaza in the nine months since the war began when the militant group Hamas attacked Israel’s border. The United States continues to supply bombs to Israel even as it tells its allies that the civilian death toll remains unacceptably high. Israel says it has taken steps to reduce civilian casualties. Gaza health authorities say nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, mostly women and children. About 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed on Oct. 7, according to the Israeli government.
UNRWA spokeswoman Juliet Touma said eight schools had been attacked in the past two weeks, including six of the agency’s own.
Juliette Touma: Attacks and attacks on schools have become almost a daily occurrence in Gaza over the past 10 days. 70% of our schools have been attacked, the vast majority of them, in fact, more than 90% of them are used as shelters for internally displaced families.
ALLAF: Israel insists that schools are legitimate targets if Hamas militants are operating there. Israel says militants were in or near the schools it targeted both on Tuesday and in an attack 11 days ago. Touma said UNRWA had no way of knowing whether militants were present and called unsuccessfully for an independent investigation into the attack.
BASSET JAMA: (Speaking non-English language).
ALLAF: Jamal says if Hamas fighters are in Razi refugee camp, then these families simply can’t stay in school. In a July 6 attack, Israel struck another UNRWA school in the same camp, killing 22 people, according to Gaza health officials.
UM YAMEN: (Speaking non-English language, crying).
AARAF: In a classroom there, Anas met a group of women whose children had been killed.
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: This is the sound of a mother mourning the death of her 10-year-old child.
Amen: (crying).
BABA: She had already lost a daughter and now she had lost a son.
ALLAF: The old classroom was hot and crowded. This woman, Umm Yamen, sat on the concrete floor, heartbroken. Other women waved plastic sheets in front of her face to keep her from fainting. Her 11-year-old daughter, Lamar, had been killed in a previous airstrike, and today it was her 8-year-old son, Zeid, who was killed.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaks non-English language).
ALLAF: Umm Yamen’s sister-in-law says Zeid was playing in the school yard when Israel bombed it.
DAD: They tried to get her some air but she didn’t even understand what was going on.
Amen: (crying).
ALLAF: Grieving parents say it’s incomprehensible that they spent nine months fleeing from place to place trying to keep their children safe, and then lost them in a split second. Jane Allaf is an NPR News correspondent in Beirut. NPR’s Anas Baba reports from Gaza.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARTIN JACOBI’S “WE WILL BE TOGETHER FOREVER”)
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