A Palestinian teacher was shot in the lower back by Israeli fire while explaining a science lesson to her third-grade pupils at a makeshift tent school in eastern Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Sahar Abushbeika, who teaches at the Dawn of Hope school, said she was hit on 30 September after hearing what sounded like a drone, followed by a small explosion. 'I felt something hit my lower back and realised it was a bullet,' she told Middle East Eye. 'The pupils panicked, and I tried to calm them down, but they saw the blood, and I fell to the ground.'
The shooting comes as Gaza's devastated education system attempts a fragile restart. After nearly three years of Israeli attacks that destroyed or damaged more than 97 percent of schools across the Strip, the Ministry of Education, Unrwa and several independent initiatives have opened tent schools for hundreds of thousands of children. With classrooms and teachers in short supply, many pupils study on rotating shifts, receiving only about three hours of lessons a day, three days a week.
Abushbeika, a mother of five displaced from her home in Khan Younis, volunteered to teach near the tent where she now lives. 'There are no tables or chairs in the school. Pupils sit on the ground, and I stand to explain the lessons. The bullet penetrated the tent and hit me directly,' she said. Surgeons could not remove the bullet because it is lodged in a highly sensitive area of her back, and she can no longer walk or sit properly. With thousands of patients considered more urgent already waiting on lengthy evacuation lists, doctors could not prioritise her for medical evacuation.
About three weeks later, nine-year-old Amir Abusneimah was wounded at a school run by the Gaza Children Village, a US-registered charity, also in eastern Khan Younis. A bullet pierced the tent classroom, struck the blackboard and ricocheted into his left shoulder.
'The bullet came close to his heart,' his mother, Muna Abusneimah, told MEE from her tent in Khan Younis. She said the shot came from above, passed near the teacher's head and hit the board before striking her son, which reduced the severity of his injury. 'When he saw me, he tried to reassure me, saying: Don't worry, Mum, I'm fine. God was kind to me.'
She said Amir was hit despite sand barriers built around the tents to protect pupils and staff from gunfire that has become frequent in the displacement camp, which lies about two to three kilometres from Israel's so-called Yellow Line. Days after he was wounded, an Israeli bullet pierced the school's administration room and struck a cupboard while the headteacher was inside, MEE was told.
At Nasser Hospital, doctors found one of the boy's arteries had been severed and performed urgent surgery lasting about four hours. His condition is now stable, but he needs physiotherapy and has stopped going to school until he recovers. His mother, raising five children alone while separated from her husband, said she is anxious whenever they leave for class.
The new school year had brought something approaching normal for the first time since the war began in October 2023, but in less than two months several attacks on schools and universities have disrupted learning again. On Tuesday, an Israeli air strike hit the entrance to the University College of Applied Sciences in Mawasi Khan Younis, killing three Palestinians and wounding 11 others, including students. The same day, 16-year-old Rimas Ismail al-Madhoun was killed in an air strike shortly after returning from school in central Gaza City. On 25 October, two strikes hit the courtyard of the Islamic University in Gaza City, killing three security guards and wounding several others, including students.
In October alone, at least 14 school students aged six to 16 were killed in Israeli attacks, along with four teachers and three university employees. Since 7 October 2023, at least 19,200 school students and 1,386 university students have been killed, and a further 28,590 school students and 3,100 university students wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
