Israel continues to bomb schools in Gaza. Why do people still shelter there? | Gaza

At least eight United Nations-run schools that serve as shelters for displaced Palestinians have been hit by Israeli attacks in the last 10 days.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says that 120 of its educational institutions have been hit since Israel began the war in Gaza on October 7.

Families living in abandoned classrooms face fatigue, trauma, and unsanitary, overcrowded shelter conditions beyond capacity.

Despite difficult conditions and the risk of bombing, many seek the relative safety of UN schools, some guided by the memory of past wars where these spaces provided refuge, and since at least 2017some are designed to function as emergency shelters with additional power, sanitation and generators.

Protection

“You hope that UN membership can protect you,” said journalist Mohammed Mhawish, 25, who took shelter in a UN-run school in Gaza City with his wife, two-year-old son and his parents after a Israeli attack destroyed their home in December, trapping them under the rubble for two hours until neighbors freed them.

“You have to remember that there are few residential compounds, or anywhere else in Gaza, where you can take shelter,” he said, recalling how his neighbors took in the injured family after rescuing them.

It soon became clear that the apartment was overcrowded. However, it was renewed Israeli bombing and ground attacks on their neighborhood that forced their family to walk an hour and a half to the nearest UN-run school, a 15-minute drive.

“It’s a central point. There is no other place where you can access help or medicine,” he said, speaking from Cairo, where his family now lives. “To be clear, there isn’t much. Everything is missing. You seem to spend the whole time in line for less and less, but it’s something.”

Mohammed added that “from a practical perspective, you cannot share what you do not have. The more people at school can also mean less food, water and medicine.”

In winter, blankets and mattresses were scarce and they were forced to drink contaminated water, increasing the risk of getting sick. And there was always the threat of bombing.

“It was always there,” Mohammed recalled, “Nowhere was safe. People would just sit and wait for it.”

Still, for some, there was a sense of support. “For some people, it’s good to be around other people who have been through the same kind of trauma,” he said. “People share their experiences with each other and that can help.”

But for Mohammad it was unbearable to see how traumatized his son Rafik was after the bombing they survived. “He stopped communicating. He wouldn’t cry. He didn’t show any emotion, there was nothing,” Mohammed recalled. “He stopped remembering what it was like when he was a child.”

Then, an Israeli evacuation order in January forced them to abandon school to find refuge in the garage of a destroyed apartment building.

Nine out of 10 people displaced

“People choose these schools because they believe that shelter under the UN flag, as international law states, should provide security,” Louise Wateridge, senior communications officer at UNRWA, told Al Jazeera from Gaza. “For civilians, schools provide security in times of war. Under the UN flag, these schools must be protected.”

However, the agency faces several challenges in getting people supplies even as they shelter in schools.

“Several factors continue to prevent us from bringing humanitarian supplies to Gaza,” she said. “These include the siege, restrictions on movement and the safety of humanitarian workers,” she explained, highlighting the limited aid and equipment, much of it medical, allowed into Gaza by the Israeli military, as well as the unpredictability of life. in a conflict zone where school occupants are regularly forced to evacuate by the Israeli army and move to another area, it designates a “safe zone”.

“People continue to be forcibly displaced,” continued Wateridge. “It is estimated that nine out of 10 people in Gaza are displaced. Many of them have been displaced up to 10 times since the start of the war. Prolonged forced displacement makes it very difficult for us to verify data and figures.”

Furthermore, Wateridge said, it was “the collapse of law and order as a result of nine months of horrific living conditions, war, famine, siege and chaos,” she said. Aid workers also report increasing cases of violence and gender-based violence in schools.

“Concerns are growing about the risk of cholera spreading, further deteriorating inhumane living conditions,” Wateridge added. “WHO [The World Health Organization] recorded an increasing number of adults and children suffering from waterborne diseases such as hepatitis A, diarrheal diseases, skin problems and others.”

Psychological support

Ahmad Swais, a psychologist at the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, MSF, has witnessed how gatherings of large numbers of people bring “a lot of suffering and different experiences”.

“This increases the negative psychological and social impact on individuals,” he said speaking from Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. “It increases the severity of psychological symptoms for the individual and families who gather in one place, whether in schools or other shelters.”

Schools offer little respite or space for those who arrive traumatized or seriously injured by the fighting, Swais said. Many feel a sense of dehumanization in the difficult conditions.

Children are the most psychologically affected by repeated displacement and war. “There [are a] large number of children who urgently need a psychological support program. It is crucial to create a child-friendly environment and a safer place to live and preserve their dignity and basic humanity,” she said.

Still, despite the difficulties, “these people who live in shelters like UNRWA schools feel they are luckier than those who live in plastic tents and sleep on the sand.”