Israel keeps bombing Gaza schools. Why do people still shelter there?

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

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

Families living in disused classrooms face fatigue, trauma and the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of shelters stretched far beyond capacity.

Despite the difficult conditions and the risk of bombardment, many seek out the relative safety of UN schools, some guided by the memory of past wars where these spaces provided a refuge, and since at least 2017, a couple were designed to double up as emergency shelters with additional power, sanitation and generator facilities.

“You hope that the UN affiliation might protect you,” said journalist Mohammed Mhawish, 25, who sheltered in a UN-run school in Gaza City with his wife, two-year-old child and his parents after an Israeli attack destroyed their home in December, trapping them under rubble for two hours until neighbours dug them free.

“You need to remember, there are few residential compounds, or anywhere else in Gaza where you can shelter,” he said, recalling how his neighbours had taken the injured family in after rescuing them.

It soon became clear the apartment was overcrowded. However, it was the further Israeli bombardment and land assault on their neighbourhood that forced his family to walk the one and a half hours to the nearest UN-run school, a 15-minute journey by car.

“It’s a central point. There’s nowhere else where you can access aid or medicine,” he said, speaking from Cairo where his family now lives. “To be clear, there isn’t a lot. Everything is in short supply. You seem to spend all your time standing in line for less and less, but it’s something.”

Mohammed added, that, “from a practical perspective, you can’t share what you don’t have. The more people in the school can also mean less food, water and medicine.”