The sky is red as the missiles cross over Gaza. For the first time, these were not aimed at Gaza’s families, but at Israel by Iran. People spilled into the streets as the Iranian attack lit up Gaza’s dark sky.
For a few hours, thousands of orphaned children, widows, and bereaved fathers and mothers celebrated as they enjoyed a modicum of retribution for the past year of genocide. Those feelings quickly dissipated. That same night, the Israeli army invaded parts of Khan Younis.
In the morning, when the military withdrew, 51 people were found dead. The following day, October 3, the Gaza Health Ministry said in its daily report that the Israeli army had carried out eight massacres that killed 99 people.
“A number of victims remain under the rubble and rescue teams can’t reach them,” the Health Ministry reported.
One of the massacres took place on October 2 at the Masqat School in eastern Gaza City and the al-Amal Institute for Orphans, housing hundreds of families. On the same day, the army bombed the Nuseirat School in Nuseirat refugee Camp and the al-Shuja’iyya School in Gaza City.
With or without the Iranian attack, the Health Ministry reports similar massacres daily in the Gaza Strip. Survivors of the massacres praise the Iranian response, even though they know that it will not do anything to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s people.
“How is today better than yesterday, after the Iranian response?” Bahaa Safadi, a survivor of the Masqat School attack, tells Mondoweiss. “It’s the same in Gaza. The same killings and massacres. Israel doesn’t need an excuse to exterminate Palestinians.”
The Civil Defense in Gaza has reported that 25 people were killed in the Masqat School bombing.
“We were sleeping in the school when at 1:30 a.m., Israel bombed the classroom next to us with four missiles,” Bahaa continues. “And the army killed our neighbors in the next class, an entire family. No one here is armed or wanted. We know each other. We’re all civilians, families of women and children.”
The Israeli army targeted two stories in the school, bombing six classrooms full of families, in addition to three other classrooms in other buildings in the school compound.
The Israeli army claimed that the airstrikes targeted two schools that were used as command centers for Hamas. The same justification was used by the Israeli army to invade and destroy hospitals, schools, and displacement centers, including al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, each of which were turned into massive graves by the Israeli army.
Barra Abu al-Leil, 12, was sleeping among his family in one of the classrooms at Masqat. In the morning, he lost his 9-year-old brother, his grandmother, and his aunt.
“I was sleeping and covered myself with a jacket,” Barra says in video testimony for Mondowiess. “I woke up to find myself under the rubble. The jacket was on top of my head, and all the stones and rubble was above me. My other brother came and kept calling me until he found me. I was not able to scream. I saw death.”
Amid the rubble, Um Muhammad, a mother sheltering with her family in the school, tells Mondoweiss that she has not witnessed such a horrifying moment before.
“We woke up to the extremely intense bombing and the screams of people next to us; we were not able to leave the class,” she says. “When people helped us to get out of the classroom, we found people on the ground torn apart, children and women in pieces and dozens of injuries.”
“Where is justice in this world?” Um Muhammad adds.
“Israel has been carrying out the same massacres since the beginning of the war,” Um Muhammad continues. “They don’t need a reason to kill Palestinians. When Iran bombed Israel, they bombed civilians in Gaza. They may not have the power to start wars with countries which can harm Israel, but they can definitely bomb sleeping children and women.”
Hashen al-Soudi gathered video testimony for this story.
