At least seven bodies of displaced Palestinians, including women, children and babies “shot at close range”, were found at the Shadia Abu Ghazala school.
Jabalia, Gaza Strip – Bodies were piled up where books used to be in the classroom. Bullet holes pockmarked some walls. Others were charred, apparently by fire.
Displaced families were sheltering at the United Nations-run Shadia Abu Ghazala school west of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza when Israeli soldiers entered the building. What followed was a massacre, according to witnesses and families of those killed in the early December assault.
Videos and images obtained by Tel Aviv Tribune showed bodies discovered on December 13 piled up inside the school. Since then, survivors of the attack and family members of the victims who returned to the school in search of their loved ones have come forward to recount the horror of those moments.
Witnesses said several people, including women, children and babies, were killed in an execution by Israeli forces as they took refuge inside the school.
The father of one of the victims said he was sleeping with his wife and six children when Israeli soldiers “suddenly stormed” the school.
“They entered the classroom we were in and shot directly at the people there without saying a word,” he said.
“They stopped me from speaking, asking questions or commenting on anything, and every time I tried to speak to them, they silenced me,” he recalls.
The man believes he was then ordered to leave school because of his “great age”.
“They kicked out about 20 people from the school, stripped them naked and interrogated them,” he said.
“Shot straight at”
The images show traces of blood and remains of the victims’ personal belongings that were with them before their execution, while bullets had pierced the walls of the classroom where the bodies were found.
Saeed Jumaa’s sister was among those killed, along with her husband and children.
Jumaa said he was able to return to see his relatives at the school several days later, when Israeli forces had left, but was “shocked to find that everyone there had been executed brutal manner.”
“In the room were my sister’s husband and next to him, their sons Maysara and Ahmed. My sister in the corner was hugging her last children,” Jumaa said.
Israeli forces killed them by “shooting at them at point-blank range,” he said. Their bodies were “swollen and full of worms,” he added.
According to Jumaa, Israeli soldiers “wrote something in Hebrew” on his nephew’s face.
“We didn’t understand the meaning of it and we were in a hurry to bury them a few days later because their bodies were decomposed,” he said.
Another witness who found the bodies in the classrooms said there were no signs of a missile or shell attack inside the classrooms, adding that the victims had been “shot directly” by ground troops.
In total, at least seven bodies were found in three different classrooms. Four were in one room, two in the second room and one in the third.
Dozens of displaced Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on schools in Gaza, including at least three in Jabalia.
At least 50 people were killed in an attack on Al Fakhura school last month. A few days later, an air attack on the Abu Hussein school killed at least 30 people.
Nearly 1.9 million people of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, according to the United Nations.
UN-run schools have become overcrowded shelters for thousands of displaced Palestinians. Many believed that the UN designation of these buildings would protect them from constant Israeli bombardment.
Israel’s relentless attacks have killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials. Most of those killed are children and women.