- Israeli forces’ deadly attacks on schools sheltering Palestinian civilians highlight the absence of safe places for displaced people, the vast majority of Gaza’s population.
- Hundreds of Israeli attacks since October 2023 have struck over 500 school buildings, many used as shelters, killing hundreds of civilians and causing significant damage to nearly all of Gaza’s schools.
- The Israeli attacks have denied civilians safe access to shelter, and will contribute to the disruption of access to education for many years, as repair and reconstruction of schools can require significant resources and time.
(Jerusalem, August 7, 2025) – Israeli forces’ deadly attacks on schools sheltering Palestinian civilians highlight the absence of safe places for Gaza’s displaced people, Human Rights Watch said today. Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have carried out hundreds of strikes on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians, including unlawfully indiscriminate attacks using US munitions, that have killed hundreds of civilians and damaged or destroyed virtually all of Gaza’s schools.
Recent Israeli strikes on schools-turned-shelters are part of Israeli forces’ current military offensive that is demolishing much of Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure, displacing again hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and worsening the already dire humanitarian situation. Governments, including the United States, which has provided weapons used in unlawful attacks, should impose an arms embargo on the Israeli government and take other urgent measures to enforce the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention).
“Israeli strikes on schools sheltering displaced families provide a window into the widespread carnage that Israeli forces have carried out in Gaza,” said Gerry Simpson, associate crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Other governments should not tolerate this horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians merely seeking safety.”
Human Rights Watch investigated Israeli attacks that struck the Khadija girls’ school in Deir al-Balah on July 27, 2024, killing at least 15 people, and al-Zeitoun C school in al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on September 21, 2024, killing at least 34 people. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at either school.
These findings were based on a review of satellite imagery, photos, and videos of the attacks and their aftermath, social media material relating to men known to have died in the two strikes, and phone interviews with two people who witnessed the aftermath of the Khadija school strike and another present during the attack on al-Zeitoun C school.
The Israeli authorities have not publicly provided information about the attacks that Human Rights Watch documented, including details about the intended target or any precautions taken to minimize harm to civilians. They did not respond to a July 15 letter summarizing Human Rights Watch findings on these strikes and requesting specific information.
The absence of a military target in the Khadija and al-Zeitoun school strikes would make the attacks unlawfully indiscriminate in violation of international humanitarian law. Schools and other educational facilities are civilian objects and protected from attack. They lose that protection when used for military purposes or are occupied by military forces. The use of schools to house civilians does not alter their legal status.
Between July 1 and 10, 2025, Israeli forces struck at least 10 schools-turned-shelters, including some that had been damaged previously, reportedly killing 59 people and displacing again dozens of families, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that about one million displaced people in Gaza had sheltered in schools amid the hostilities, and that as of July 18, at least 836 people sheltering in schools had been killed and at least 2,527 injured.
The most recent assessment by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster found that 97 percent of school buildings in Gaza (547 out of 564) have sustained some level of damage, including 462 (76 percent) that were “directly hit”, and that 518 (92 percent) require “full reconstruction or major rehabilitation work to become functional again.”
The Israeli attacks have denied civilians safe access to shelter and will contribute to the disruption of access to education for many years, as repair and reconstruction of schools can require significant resources and time, with a significant negative impact on children, parents, and teachers.
The Israeli publications +972Magazine and Local Call reported on July 24 that the Israeli military set up “a special strike cell to systematically identify schools, which are referred to as ‘centers of gravity,’ in order to bomb them, claiming that Hamas operatives hide among the hundreds of civilians.” The report noted that “double tap” strikes—second attacks in the same location designed to hit survivors of the initial strike and first responders—have “become particularly common in recent months when Israel bombs schools in Gaza.”
The Israeli military has claimed with respect to dozens of attacks on schools that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters or “command and control” centers were deployed at the school, without providing specific information. Human Rights Watch is aware of only seven instances in which the Israeli military published names and photographs of alleged members of Palestinian armed groups it said were present in a school at the time of the attack.
After a June 6, 2024, attack on al-Sardi school, the Israeli military identified 17 names of alleged fighters. However, a Human Rights Watch review of the names found that three were people who appeared to have been killed in earlier attacks.
The presence of Palestinian armed groups at any of the attacked schools would not necessarily make the attacks lawful. The laws of war prohibit attacks on military objectives if the anticipated harm to civilians and civilian objects is disproportionate compared to the expected military gain from the attack.
The laws of war also require, unless circumstances do not permit, warring parties to give “effective advance warning” of attacks that may affect the civilian population.
Armed groups deployed at schools-turned-shelters would place civilians at unnecessary risk. The laws of war obligate warring parties to take all feasible precautions against the effects of attacks and to avoid locating military targets near densely populated areas.
Serious violations of the laws of war by individuals with criminal intent—that is, deliberately or recklessly—are war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime. All state parties to an armed conflict are obligated to investigate alleged war crimes by members of their armed forces.
The Safe Schools Declaration, an international political commitment endorsed by 121 countries, aims to protect education during times of war by strengthening the prevention of, and response to, attacks on students, teachers, schools, and universities, including by avoiding the use of education facilities for military purposes. While Israel has not joined, Palestine endorsed the declaration in 2015.
Governments should suspend arms transfers to Israel, given the clear risk that the arms might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law. The US government’s provision of arms to Israel, which have repeatedly been used in strikes on schools-turned-shelters and to carry out apparent war crimes, has made the United States complicit in their unlawful use.
On June 10, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel reported that Israeli authorities had “obliterated Gaza’s education system” and that its attacks on educational, as well as religious and cultural sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, were “part of a widespread and relentless assault against the Palestinian people in which Israeli forces have committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.”
“After nearly two years of frequent Israeli attacks killing civilians in schools and other protected locations, governments providing military support to Israel can’t say they weren’t aware of the consequences of their actions,” Simpson said. “Governments should suspend all arms transfers to Israel and take other actions to prevent further mass atrocities.”
Israeli Attacks on Schools-Turned-Shelters
Human Rights Watch was unable to visit sites of the strikes on Khadija girls’ school and al-Zeitoun C school because Israeli authorities have blocked virtually all entry into Gaza since October 2023. Israel has repeatedly denied Human Rights Watch requests to enter Gaza since 2008.
Khadija Girls’ School, Deir al-Balah, July 27, 2024
On July 27, 2024, starting shortly before noon and until about 3 p.m., Israeli forces carried out at least three airstrikes, two with US munitions, on Khadija girls’ school in Deir al-Balah, killing at least 15 people. The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, a body providing emergency and rescue services, reported that the school had sheltered about 4,000 displaced people for many months. The director of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, about a kilometer east of the school, said the school had a “field hospital” connected to his hospital. Reports of the attack started appearing on social media shortly before noon.
The school consists of five buildings next to a playground on about 5,000 square meters of land.
Human Rights Watch found no indication of a military objective in or near the school on the day of the attack. A review of social media on the men known to have been killed in the attack and the online pages of Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces showed no evidence of a Palestinian armed group’s presence at the school. The Israeli military did not reply to a Human Rights Watch request for more information about the target.
Airwars, a nongovernmental organization that investigates civilian harm in conflict zones, reviewed social media and other open sources and found the names of 15 people killed, including 7 men, 4 women, and 4 children, as well as 2 others without their complete names. Airwars also found the full names of 9 people injured, including 4 men, 2 children, and 3 males whose ages are unknown. The identified dead and injured are from 18 families. Human Rights Watch reviewed social media and other open sources, but found no additional names.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that the attack killed at least 30 people and injured 100. The victims were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital nearby.
Human Rights Watch spoke by phone with a journalist who was based at the hospital. He said that at around noon, he heard a single explosion from the direction of the school and ran toward it. “When we arrived, I saw a horrific scene,” the journalist said. “I saw injured women, children, the elderly and some doctors in their medical clothes. Women were shouting, ‘Where are my children?’ or ‘My son, I want my son.’”
Human Rights Watch also spoke with another journalist who was about two kilometers from the school when at around noon, he heard a bomb falling and then an explosion. He arrived at the school about 20 minutes later.
“I saw that a two-story building on the eastern side of the school had been completely destroyed,” he said. “Can you imagine, a building full of displaced people levelled in the blink of an eye? I saw people with serious and more minor injuries, and then saw human remains on the ground.”
Human Rights Watch verified four videos relating to the attacks on the school, though none showed the initial attack. The first was posted to social media by the Saudi news channel Asharq News, which an analysis of the shadows in the video show it was filmed around midday. The video shows damage to, and debris from, the northern part of the campus, as well as injured people being carried out of one of the buildings.
Human Rights Watch analyzed two further videos uploaded to social media on July 27 that were filmed sometime between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. The first captures the moment two munitions strike the school almost simultaneously. The second, filmed approximately 200 meters southeast of the school, captures a loud explosion, followed by a group of people running through a plume of smoke and into the school compound. It then shows significant damage to the western and southern parts of the school campus, including two entirely destroyed buildings. The camera then pans onto a munition remnant lodged in the ground in the middle of the school compound.
A fourth video uploaded to social media from an account that posted two other videos from the attack shows an unexploded munition inside what is said to be one of the school’s rooms. Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm where the video was filmed or at what time, although the color of blown-out window frames matches the first video from the school.
Based on the photos and videos, and identifiable munition remnants, including an unexploded item, Human Rights Watch determined that at least two air-dropped GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs were used in the attack. These munitions are produced by the Boeing Company and transferred to Israel with US government approval under the Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Sales programs.
The Gaza Media Office reported that Israeli fighter jets dropped three bombs on the field hospital in the school. A witness told the Washington Post that four munitions had hit the school, all around noon.
A man who said he was about 500 meters from the school around midday described two attacks involving multiple munitions. He told Human Rights Watch that after the first attack, Israeli authorities contacted the residents of a house near the school and said that people should “leave the area as they were going to strike the school again.” He also said that the second set of attacks involved multiple bombs that completely destroyed the building that had been hit during the first strikes.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also found that the Israeli military had issued a warning ahead of the second and third strikes, “but not the first in which most of the casualties had reportedly occurred.”
About an hour after the attack, the Israeli military said on their Telegram channel that they had “struck terrorists operating a Hamas command and control center embedded inside the Khadija School in central Gaza.” The Israeli military provided no further details.
Human Rights Watch reviewed online materials concerning the seven men listed as killed by Airwars, as well as the Telegram channels and associated social media channels of Hamas’ armed wing, Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, al-Quds Brigade. These groups often announce the killing of their fighters, but neither group mentioned the strike.
The Israeli military has presented no information demonstrating the presence of a military target or other military objective within or near the building. The military also has not said why it did not provide an effective advance warning to those taking shelter at the school and the residents of nearby buildings to evacuate before the initial noon attack.
Al-Zeitoun C School, Gaza City, September 21, 2024
On September 21, 2024, at about 10:45 a.m., an Israeli airstrike struck al-Zeitoun C school in al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza city, killing at least 34 people.
Human Rights Watch found no indication of a military objective in or near the school the day of the attack. A review of social media of men known to have been killed in the attack and of the online pages of Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces, as well as an interview with a man who lived at the school, showed no evidence of a Palestinian armed group presence at the time of the attack. The Israeli military did not reply to a Human Rights Watch request for more information about the target of the attack, nor to a request by journalists for information about the intended target. The BBC reported that an undisclosed source said that the attack had targeted and killed “a local Hamas figure” without providing more details.
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza reported that the school was sheltering “thousands” of displaced people. The Gaza Media Office said that many of the displaced were widows and orphans who also received small cash payments to help cover food costs.
Al-Zeitoun C school is part of a three-school complex, including Al-Zeitoun A/B and al- Falah Elementary Boys B school and al-Falah preparatory Boys B school. Al-Zeitoun C has two main buildings along with several smaller structures, all situated on approximately 5,000 square meters of land.
Airwars reviewed social media and other open sources for information about the attack, and found the full names of 23 people killed from 9 families, including 3 men, 4 women, and 16 children. Gaza’s Ministry of Health and the Gaza Media Office said that 22 people were killed, including 6 women and 13 children.
Human Rights Watch reviewed social media and other open sources and found the full names of four other people who were killed. They include one woman, two boys, and one female of an unknown age.
Human Rights Watch spoke with a man who was in the school at the time of the attack and who said the strike killed eight members of his family, one of them a boy on the Airwars list. The other seven were three women, three children, and one man who were not identified by Airwars.
Human Rights Watch reviewed social media for mentions of the four men listed by Airwars as having been killed in the attack and found no ties to any armed groups.
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said that one of the women who was killed was pregnant and that about 30 people were injured, including 9 children whose limbs had to be amputated. A video posted to social media by the Saudi Arabian news channel Asharq News and analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows a rescue worker standing outside one of the school buildings holding what the channel said was a dead fetus.
The victims were taken to al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza city.
Human Rights Watch analyzed two other videos of the aftermath of the attack uploaded to social media on September 21. Human Rights Watch confirmed geolocations initially determined by two open source researchers, Anno Nemo and Jack Dev.
One video filmed around 11:30 a.m. shows two men carrying two injured and bloodied children across the campus. People are also surrounding two severely injured children, one motionless, and attempting to treat their wounds. A second video shows the school courtyard after the strike, dozens of people at a building entrance on the western side of the campus, and then several dead children.
The man who lost eight family members said that four munitions hit the school without warning. Another witness told a journalist that he saw explosions when two munitions struck the compound. A woman living at the school who was there during the attack told another journalist that “suddenly missiles started raining down on us – there was no warning.”
Three photographs uploaded to X with the logo of Quds News Network show a child holding three identifiable munition remnants in one of the classrooms. Based on these images, Human Rights Watch determined that at least one US produced GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb directly hit at least one of the school buildings.
The witness who lost eight family members said he had not seen any weapons or military material at the school and that no militants were there, “only civilians seeking safety.”
The Human Rights Watch review of online materials relating to the men listed by Airwars as killed in each of the strikes found no evidence that any were combatants. Human Rights Watch reviewed the Telegram channels and associated social media of the armed wings of Hamas, Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, al-Quds Brigade. Neither made mention of the strike.
The videos Human Rights Watch analyzed of the aftermath of the strikes on the school did not indicate any Palestinian armed group’s presence or military equipment in or near the building at the time of the attack.
On the day of the strike, the Israeli military said it had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control center … embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Al-Falah School.” According to a person with close knowledge of the schools who spoke with Airwars, al-Falah Elementary Boys B school and Al Falah Preparatory Boys B school is located about 200 meters from al-Zeitoun C school, with al-Zeitoun A/B school separating them. Palestinian media mentioned an Israeli strike on al-Falah school the same day, which reportedly resulted in injuries. The Israeli military did not make a separate statement relating to the strike on al-Zeitoun C school and has presented no information that would demonstrate the existence of a military target there. The military has also not said why it did not provide an effective advance warning to the residents of al-Zeitoun C school, and nearby buildings, to evacuate before the initial attack.
A girl who survived the attack told the BBC, “What have we done as children? We wake up and go to sleep terrified. At least protect the schools; we don’t have schools or homes – where do we go?”
