18 civilians and three aid workers killed in strikes on UNRWA schools today
Children from the Beit Hanoun school now seek shelter at Gaza hospital (AA)
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip - At Kamal Adwan hospital, the ambulances arrived unusually full with several injured at once. While this is becoming an increasingly regular sight in Gaza, there was something new about these ambulance that were rushing in people from a UNRWA school at Beit Hanoun.
Everyone of those injured or killed had hoped that they would be safe under the UN's protection. But they were not. In recent weeks, people have been flocking to UN-run shelters and the UN said it was sheltering 117,469 displaced Palestinians sheltering at 77 schools before today's bombing. This is more than double the number at the peak of the 2008-2009 Israeli incursion, but many of these internal refugees now feel like they have been left with literally nowhere else to go, now that even the UN schools have succumbed to the Israeli bombardment.
The scenes at the school in northern Gaza are horrific. The peaceful light blue walls of UNRWA schools are still spattered with blood. The children who once studied here, suddenly forced to see another face of their school.
The black and white floor is covered with pools of blood, with a blood soaked blanket and a pair of lonely sandals scattered nearby. The blood belongs to the people who were fasting and were waiting to break their fast three hours later.
Medics informed MEE that out of this single school massacre, 18 people, including a baby, have been killed and over 200 were injured.
Since the attack the panic levels among the already frightened families have reached new levels. Women and children have now fled the school and are taking refuge in hospitals, but these are also full and struggling to cope.
The sheer influx of wounded is too much for one hospital, forcing causalities to be sent to four different hospitals: Beit Hanoun, Kamal Adwan, al-Awda and Shifa hospital.
It is an exhausting feat for a mother to go by foot, searching haphazardly for her children who could be in any one of these four hospitals scattered throughout Gaza. Several people have still not been accounted for, with relatives continuing their frantic search.
The family of 17-year-old Doaa Abu Awda, was forced to scour the various hospitals for their daughter. The family ran to Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, despite the heavy shelling in the area, after they were told that she sustained injuries and was being treated there. Once they got there, however, they were told by the receptionist that she was not there. The family ran throughout all the corridors, trying to find her, but couldn’t find her anywhere. After exhausting all possibilities, the family made it down to the morgue and, at once, their search come to a tragic end.
Abu Awda was with her family, seeking refuge in a place that she trusted to be safe. More than a thousand Palestinians were in the school in Beit Hanoun seeking refuge with her, when the bombs struck.
“I was sitting in the soccer field when five tank shells hit,” an injured child tries to tell Middle East Eye although he struggles to get the words out.
Another woman, running in terror, screams, “my daughter, my daughter… they had her legs and arms amputated.”
READ MORE: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/two-dozen-killed-several-unrwa-schools-hit-gaza-26249873
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