The New Dark Age

As in-person classes return to Gaza after a three-year hiatus due to the ongoing genocide, the Israelis have found easy targets — and their favourite ones: children on their way to school.

Between October 18 and 24, they killed ten children aged between six and 16 and a teacher. Many more have been injured. In an Israeli attack on the Islamic University of Gaza last Sunday, five students were injured. Three security personnel died in a subsequent attack on the same campus.

Schools along the so-called yellow line have been particularly deadly for children.

According to Al Jazeera, at least 66 Palestinian children have been killed close to the yellow line, and pupils and teachers travelling near this zone remain in mortal danger from Israeli snipers and bombs. Moreover, the yellow line keeps snaking westward, eating up more Palestinian territory. At the start of the “ceasefire” last October, the Israelis sat inside 53 percent of Gaza; they now occupy nearly 70 percent. Netanyahu announced in May his intention to gradually eat up more territory.

‘Why did this happen to me?’

On October 21, Suad Abd Rabbo, a fourth-grade student, was shot on her way to school. “I ran out barefoot,” Suad’s mother, Aliaa Abd Rabbo, told Al Jazeera. “When I saw her, I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. She was bleeding, crying and screaming.”

She was hit by a bullet above her knee in a sensitive area close to her nerves and tendons. The doctors warned her that attempts to remove the bullet could cause paralysis. The bullet remains lodged in her leg.

Suad has been discharged from hospital and has returned to her tent, but she is unable to walk. She needs to be evacuated for further treatment. However, Israel’s suffocating restrictions on movement into and out of Gaza leave her with little hope of a swift recovery.

According to figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry earlier this month, 5,803 children require medical evacuation for treatment abroad, while 264 have died while waiting to be evacuated.

“Suad is now deeply frustrated. She cries and asks: ‘Why did this happen to me? Why was I targeted? What did I do?’” her mother, Abd Rabbo, said.

Israeli tanks, military vehicles and cranes regularly open fire close to their tent in northern Gaza, particularly after sunset, terrorising genocide survivors. Families often have to lie flat on the ground for hours to avoid the stray bullets that ricochet through the camp.

“My heart hurts when I send the girls to school. I told my husband I regret coming back from the south,” Abd Rabbo said, referring to their return home to Jabalia after fleeing to Deir el-Balah during the war.

‘Education is under fire’

On the same day that Suad was hit by an Israeli bullet, another girl was injured at Muradiya School while pupils were preparing for assembly at 10:30 am. “The girls had formed two lines … one suddenly screamed and fell to the ground … another girl standing nearby was struck by a bullet in her side,” Naima Aloush, the school’s principal, told Al Jazeera.

Teachers rushed to the girls and found that Suad had been shot, while the second pupil, Amina Khader, a fifth-grade student, had sustained a minor injury to her abdomen.

Aloush said the shooting sent fear through the school, with parents rushing to collect their children.

The principal sees this incident as part of wider dangers facing the school in the al-Ghubari area, west of Jabalia al-Balad, consisting of 20 educational tents and serving about 1,000 pupils in the surrounding community, close to the yellow line.

Aloush said stray bullets or projectiles — from Israeli artillery, quadcopter drones and snipers — still regularly hit the school.

“Education is under fire, and our whole lives are under fire. At any moment, there can be gunfire. It is not light … it comes down like rain,” she said. “Every day, I come to school with my hand over my heart, afraid that one of my pupils or a member of the teaching staff might be hit.”

‘There was terror, absolute terror’

Amina, the other child injured along with Suad, has been left deeply traumatised by the incident, her father, Khaled Khader, said.

Khader said he rushed to the school after hearing that Amina had been injured and carried his daughter to a nearby clinic.

“There was terror, absolute terror. My daughter was in shock. She broke down, started screaming and collapsed,” Khader told Al Jazeera. “Thank God she is safe … but the psychological impact of what happened will take years to overcome.”

Amina has since been afraid to return to school. Her family tried taking her back once, but she left early, unable to bear the sound of the gunfire.

“She is now afraid of the school itself. She keeps dreaming about her classmate lying there with blood running from her,” Khader said.

He said the incident had also left him afraid for the rest of his children and his wife, with Israeli air raids, random gunfire and shelling continuing to affect streets near the school.

“We are confused about what to do. Do we keep our children away from school and deprive them of their education, or do we send them out, knowing that they could be targeted at any moment?” Khader said. “A student needs stability to be able to learn. But we have no stability, and there are no alternatives.”