‘They were burned alive': Israel bombs school sheltering thousands, premises engulfed in flames

Mada

7 days ago

Israel bombed a school sheltering thousands of displaced people in east Gaza City on Sunday night, causing fire to spread rapidly through the crowded premises where people were sleeping, eyewitnesses told Mada Masr.
'We heard the cries of the displaced as they were burning inside classrooms. We tried to break the iron bars on the classroom windows, but it was too late for many of them — they were burned alive,' said Ahmed al-Nady, who was at the scene at the time of the explosion.
The Gaza Government Media Office said on Monday morning that the heavy strikes on the school killed 31 people, including 18 children and six women, and injured tens of others.
The Fahmi al-Jargawi school that was struck is in the Daraj area of Gaza City, the crowded capital where over one million Palestinians are currently sheltering in buildings and temporary camps, according to local officials' latest estimates. Israeli troops displaced hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks as they advanced on several towns north of the city while launching an aerial bombardment campaign that destroyed much of the towns' infrastructure.
'The fire broke out in the span of seconds,' said Abd al-Nahal, who witnessed the first moments of the attack. 'The displaced had no chance to evacuate the tents and classrooms — the flames engulfed them before they realized what was happening,' he added.
He and others present struggled to conduct rescue operations with no access to equipment. 'Children and women were screaming inside the classrooms, calling for help, while we had no real tools to extinguish the fire,' he said. 'The scenes were terrifying and horrific.'
Nady echoed his account of what happened. 'The scene was indescribable — pure horror,' he said. 'The charred bodies of children laid in front of me. I could not even carry them; they were burning hot from the intense heat,' he continued.
'I saw a child through a classroom window burning alive while calling his mother, who had burned beside him. This scene will never leave my memory,' he added.
First responders at the scene, including civilians like Nady and Nahal, and the civil defense were only able to retrieve the charred remains of some of those who had taken refuge at the site, most of whom were women and children.
Fadl Naeem, the head of the Ahli Arab Hospital which received many of the attack victims, likewise told Mada Masr that as well as the injured, some of the charred remains of those killed were delivered to the facility in such a state of damage that it was difficult to establish the identity of those killed.
Such critical injuries are difficult to treat due to the severe shortage of medicines and essential supplies imposed by Israel's blockade, Naeem continued. The siege, which it resumed once it renewed its genocidal war in early March, deprived the population in Gaza of food, water, fuel and medicines for over 80 consecutive days and was only interrupted last week when limited supplies of essential aid were permitted to enter the strip.
The situation at the facility is 'catastrophic' as it is unequipped to handle the massive number of injured and the hospital's medical staff was forced to move some of the injured to other hospitals, he added.
The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza announced a preliminary death toll shortly after the Israeli attack, stating that its teams were eventually able to extinguish the fire and retrieve 13 dead bodies and 21 wounded. The death toll later increased to 31.
In a Monday morning announcement, the Israeli military claimed it had taken 'numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.' It said the strike targeted Hamas and other militant groups allegedly operating from the school — a claim it has repeatedly invoked over the past 19 months of aggression on the strip when striking densely-populated areas where displaced people were sheltering.
Targeting the school at night, however, ensured the strike would cause the highest possible number of casualties among those sleeping inside, head of the Government Media Office, Ismail al-Thawabta, told Mada Masr on Monday. He described the Occupation's timing and targeting of the school as deliberate.
The scale of destruction and number of fatalities led many eyewitnesses to believe that Israel used different munitions than those previously deployed.
'Occupation forces used a certain type of missiles that cause massive fires,' said Nahal, pointing to the scale of the flames that engulfed the Fahmi al-Jargawi school.
The hospital director similarly noted that the nature of the injuries pointed to missiles designed to produce large and destructive fires.
Officials and humanitarian organizations operating in the besieged Gaza enclave have warned for months that the medical system is on the verge of collapse, with the remaining facilities either overwhelmed by the intensified Israeli attacks and lack of supplies or directly targeted by Israeli forces.
Over the past few days, small quantities of food were allowed into some areas of Gaza for the first time in over 80 days, following Israel's abandonment of the prisoners exchange framework established under the January ceasefire deal.
However, UN humanitarian coordinator Tom Fletcher described the amount of aid Israel allowed in as 'a drop in the ocean' and totally inadequate.