On October 10, minutes before 11:30 am, the Rufaida Al-Aslamia Secondary School for Girls, sheltering thousands of people in Deir al-Balah, was bombed by in Israeli airstrike.

Targeting Public gathering

The attack occurred during peak hours when women and children were moving to collect their daily food : Journalist Imad Zakout reported, from eyewitnesses "who survived the bombing, the occupation forces targeted the Rufaida School in Deir al-Balah while distributing milk to children and food to families, as there was a large crowd of mothers and children inside the school yard.”

• The school is located in a very densely populated area and near the Deir al-Balah Red Crescent Association.
• During the following hours, the toll of killed and wounded increases by the minute. The dismembered bodies and human remains are brought in at the same time as the injured.
• In the afternoon, there are 28 martyrs, as first toll, and dozens of injured.
• The majority of casualties were women and children who had been displaced from their homes due to bombings in civilian neighborhoods.
• The media office claims the Israeli army was aware the school was housing thousands of displaced people. -The situations continue to be very difficult all the day inside the emergency department of Al Aqsa hospital where medical staff are pretty much unable to provide any necessary medical intervention to save lives.
• Many of the victims arriving at the hospital, their blood filled up the courtyard of the hospital the moment the door of the ambulance vehicle opened.

Source : 1 2

Weapon

The tail actuation system of a GBU-39 Smalll Diameter Bomb was found amid the rubble. SourceThe bomb that was dropped by the F-16 packed with nails, packed with pieces of metal and shrapnel that cut through the flesh and caused severe bleeding. Source

Civil defense and Ambulance crews

• At midday, Civil defense and ambulances crews are still rescuing bodies under the rubble. The scenes are horrifying. Palestine Red Crescent teams responded to 28 fatalities and 54 injuries following the Israeli occupation army’s targeting of Rafida School, located near the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters in Deir Al-Balah, in central. The injuried toll was 92 at the end of the afternoon.

Medecins sans frontières - Doctors without borders statement

"60 patients, including 5 children severly injured, where brought to the Al Aqsa hospital. The staff is feeling helpless. There are no beds, and enough supply to treat the wounded. We don't even have sterile gauze left", says Eliza Sabatini, Doctors Without Borders nurse in Gaza.This is the second time in the span of a week that the Al Aqsa hospital has received an influx of severely wounded patients due to Israeli airstrikes. Israel must immediately stop its all-out war on people in Gaza."

Gaza’s Health Ministry statement :

“The Israeli occupation committed a new massacre by targeting the displaced in the Rufaida school in the Deir el-Balah area in the central governorate this afternoon, where 28 martyrs and more than 54 injuries arrived at the hospitals,” the ministry said.

This is the third attack on a school over the past week in Deir al-Balah.

Testimony of the distress and chaos inside the school and in the hospital :

According to one of Al Jazeera correspondant : "People search the bodies for family members after Israeli attack on school shelter. We’re still seeing more of the surviving family members who rushed to the hospital to check for their children and check for their family members to see if they were among the casualties or not. Some of them are still missing. We saw one mother going through the bodies, just looking for anything that could lead to the body of her son. She said there is a birthmark – that she’s going to continue to search. Another person was looking for the body of his wife, who happened to be at that evacuation centre when it was targeted. She was given an appointment to go pick up formula milk for her newly born child that happened to be distributed at this evacuation centre. She was in the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital. He was able to recognise the body from the clothes that she was wearing."

Names of the martyrs (identified):

1. Abdullah Abdul Hakim Joda (19 years old)
2. Ahmed Jameel Salman (40 years old)
3. Ilham Hussein Al-Kafarna (40 years old)
4. Salem Ruwaishid Al-Waqadi (26 years old, policeman)
5. Sumaya Younis Al-Kafarna (87 years old)
6. Mohammed Jamal Hamouda (40 years old)
7. Hossam Abdullah Al-Agha (32 years old)
8. Ahmed Adel Hamouda (58 years old)
9. Marwan Abdulaziz Al-Assar (60 years old)
10. Mohammed Saeed Nassar (43 years old)
11. Mohamed Salah Timraz (47 years old)
12. Zainab Raafat Al-Sultan (27 years old)
13. Khaled Mohammed Abu Khousa (60 years old)
14. Suleiman Muhammad Abu Khousa (65 years old)
15. Mahmoud Kamel Abu Taym (28 years old)
16. Mahmoud Basem Hijazi (23 years old)
17. Ali Mahmoud Baalousha (40 years old)
18. Atiya Raed Baraka (17 years old)
19. Ghaida Yousef Abu Rahma (24 years old)
20. Munther Mohammed Salman (31 years old)
21. Abeer Jameel Aql (Dawas) (32 years old)
22. Najwan Rabie Ahmed Al Sultan (35 years old)
23. Mila Alaa Al Sultan (6 years old)
24. Musa Ali Al-Samak (23 years old)
25. Youssef Atiyeq Masmah (41 years old)
26. Suad Muhammad Youssef Rizq (66 years old)