‘Shrapnel, stones and scattered human flesh’: Testimonies from survivors of Gaza school bombings
On Thursday, August 8 , Israeli airstrikes targeted two schools in Gaza City, killing at least 17 people and the injury of dozens others. These are the testimonies of some of the survivors.
For the third time in a row in just one week, Israel attacked displaced Palestinians sheltering in schools in the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring dozens.
On Thursday, August 8 around 3:00 p.m. local time, Israeli airstrikes targeted two schools in Gaza City at the same time: Al-Zahraa School in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood and Abdul Fattah Hamoud School in the old city of Gaza. The attack resulted in the killing of 17 people and the injury of dozens others.
The attack came just days after the Israeli army bombed two other schools in Gaza City, which resulted in the killing of 27 displaced people.
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The bombings on Thursday struck terror among the crowds of displaced people sheltering at the schools. Witnesses at the Abdul Fattah Hamoud School in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City told Mondoweissthat the school was at one of its most crowded hours in the middle of the day when the bombs hit.
“Suddenly, a missile fell on us. The school was crowded during the day, and the displaced people were still moving inside. After the bombing, all the shrapnel, stones, and scattered pieces of human flesh fell on the heads of the displaced people,” said Kamal Hamada, 20, who lives in the school as a displaced person and witnessed the massacre.
“There was a water well in the school that provided for more than 300 families inside the school, and the Israeli army directly bombed the well,” Hamada said. “The world ignores our slaughter, if these scenes were published somewhere else, it would be a crime that everyone would condemn.”
Mondoweiss spoke to a number of other eyewitnesses who were at both schools, who described harrowing scenes of dismembered and scattered bodies on the ground, and families fleeing in a state of panic and terror.
Muhammad Hamada, 14, was playing with his peers at the time of the bombing. The force of the missile threw him to another area of the school.
“After I opened my eyes, I went to the place where the bomb hit. A man was sitting on a wooden chair. Shrapnel had entered his chest and penetrated him and the chair. The man was sitting in a position as if he was alive, but he was dead,” he said.
“Suddenly, the missile hit the school. We saw fire after the bombing. Shrapnel was flying in the air and falling on people’s heads. We were terrified,” the boy told Mondoweiss. “We started running and trying to escape. We did not know where we would go, but we wanted to get out of danger. At that time, people were collecting the remains of the martyrs scattered on the ground.”
After he came to, Muhammad went to search for his friends at the spot where they were playing before the bomb hit. He found his best friend on the ground. The bomb had cut off his hand and leg.
When Muhammad saw this scene next to the torn and burned bodies, he could not bear it. “I started running and screaming and crying; I could not bear the sight of the torn martyrs and the blood and smoke; I was running without seeing in front of me; I wanted to get as far away as possible from the school,” he said.
“Women were also running to get out of the school, falling to the ground with their children in panic, and here we are, too, trying to move our belongings and go to another place to evacuate.”
Muhammad said that what he has seen and witnessed since the beginning of this war is more than he and his peers can bear.
“We saw many scenes that we could not get over, we saw martyrs cut into pieces, and most of our friends and relatives died, and I am living these circumstances; I was supposed to be in this school only to study and learn, not to live with my family,” he said. “I was supposed to play and be happy, but in this school I see my relatives, neighbors, and friends being cut into pieces.”
Jamil Al-Fayoumi, 40, lives at the school with his family, and spends most of his days there. On the day of the massacre, however, he was at the nearby hospital receiving treatment for an injury.
“I was about to arrive at the school when the bombing happened. I ran to check on my family and relatives. I found my cousins killed,” al-Fayoumi said.
“We were in a state of madness. The missile fell among my relatives. When I arrived at the bombing site, I found the bodies torn apart and the limbs scattered. It was a scene I will never forget in my entire life.”
Two of Jamil’s cousins were killed in this massacre, and a number of his other relatives were injured.
This is not the first time that Israel has bombed the Abdul Fattah Hamoud School. On June 25th, the same school was bombed, killing 13 displaced people. Many families evacuated the school after the first bombing. However, many of the families also had no alternative shelter and did not know where to go, so they remained in the school.
Ibrahim Al-Fayoumi, 25, was injured in the first bombing at the school on June 25th. The injury caused him fractures in his ribs and pelvis.
“I escaped death by chance. I was away from the bombing but inside the school. When I heard the bomb, I ran to the place and found the room where we were sitting with our relatives had been bombed,” Ibrahim recounted. “The whole scene was of scattered body parts around the bombing site. Until this moment, body parts and human flesh are stuck to the floor and walls.”
Ibrahim told Mondoweiss that he is tired of the ongoing situation in which he lives: moving, killing, constant displacement, and the lack of safe places for civilians. “We are tired, exhausted; the flames were like hell; we have never seen this scene before,” he said.
In the previous bombing of the same school, Ibrahim’s 9-month-old cousin was injured, suffering burns to her face and body. Since then, her family has been trying to help her recover from the burns, and only a few days ago, the little girl began to recover. She was killed in the bombing on Thursday.
“I am 25-years-old, but I feel like I am 100-years-old from all of these horrible things we have witnessed.”
Akram Mahani, 44, was displaced from the Shuja’iyya after Israeli ground troops invaded the neighborhood last June. During the invasion, his home was bombed and two of his sons were killed. Both his sons’ bodies were never retrieved; they are still under the rubble to this day.
After the Shuja’iyya invasion, Mahani and his remaining family were displaced to the Al-Zahraa School. He thought he was safe, but on Thursday, Israeli bombs followed them there too.
Akram sits now in the Baptist Hospital, which is a few minutes away from the now-bombed Al-Zahraa school, with his surviving children, Ahmad, who is two-and-a-half years old, and Othman, who is five.
“We have escaped death many times, but perhaps it was written for us all to die in this war,” Mahani says, pondering his family’s fate. “All of my cousins were martyred in this bombing. None of them remained. An entire family was erased from the civil registry in this bombing,” he said.
“This is what is happening to us. They kill entire families, not individuals or even wanted persons. They kill everyone without exception.”
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