Safad School Massacre

Incident Overview:*

Location: Safad School, Zaytoun neighborhood, Gaza City. Date: September 1, 2024

Details:

• Israeli warplanes bombed Safad School, which was being used as a shelter by displaced Palestinian families.
• Casualties: 11 confirmed dead, including 4 initially killed in the first strike. Many others were severely injured, with some still trapped under the rubble.

Sequence of Events:

• Initial Strike: The first airstrike targeted a police station inside Safad School, completely destroying a wing of the building.
• Threats and Subsequent Strikes: During rescue operations, the IDF threatened a second strike, which was followed by a third, preventing the rescue of victims and assuring further casualties and deaths.
• The school was also bombed a third time.
• Rescue operations were only possible after the third strike. Gaza's Civil Defense noted that at least one woman and one child were still alive after the firsts trike, but had perished after the third.
• On September 3, Civil Defense confirmed excavating the bodies of 4 martyrs from the rubble and noted that some people remain missing since the airstrikes.

Impact on Surrounding Area:

• The adjacent Al-Hurriya School was also damaged.
• The attack resulted in the of 11, some of which were not identified yet.

Context:

• Safad School was one of many shelters used by hundreds of families. However, due to recent IDF assaults in the Zaytoun area, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had decreased, though thousands still remained. -The Government Communications Office reported that a total of 172 shelters have been targeted by Israel during the conflict.

Humanitarian Concerns:

• The repeated targeting of school shelters is part of an ongoing policy by Israel, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
• Victims including children injured in the attack were taken to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, their physical injuries compounded by the lasting psychological trauma of the event.

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