PERSONAL: Gazan mourns mother, sister and her unborn child following Israeli strike on school-turned-shelter

Record ID: 1988283

  • Title: PERSONAL: Gazan mourns mother, sister and her unborn child following Israeli strike on school-turned-shelter
  • Date: 4th April 2025
  • Summary: GAZA CITY, GAZA (APRIL 4, 2025) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DESTRUCTION FOLLOWING ISRAELI STRIKE ON DAR AL-ARQAM SCHOOL BOY WALKING ON RUBBLE, CARRYING PLASTIC BOX PEOPLE SCOURING THROUGH RUBBLE VARIOUS OF PALESTINIAN WHOSE FAMILY MEMBERS WERE KILLED IN THE ISRAELI STRIKE ON DAR AL-ARQAM SCHOOL, HEMAM AL-RIFI, SITTING ON RUBBLE, CHECKING BABY CLOTHES (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTIN
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Gaza Gaza City Israel Palestinians personal
  • Location: GAZA CITY, GAZA
  • City: GAZA CITY, GAZA
  • Country: Palestinian Occupied Territory
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East
  • Reuters ID: LVA001427504042025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Forty-year-old Palestinian Hemam al-Rifi showed on Friday (April 4) baby clothes he pulled out of the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike that hit Dar Al-Arqam’s school building in Gaza City on Thursday (April 3).
    Rifi said the clothes belonged to the unborn child of his nine-month-pregnant sister who was killed in the strike alongside her husband and mother, recalling how his sister was happily preparing to welcome her firstborn.
    The father of six said he was staying in a tent at the school-turned-shelter after his home was destroyed. But now that the school is in rubble, he no longer knows where to find refuge, he added.
    Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces killed at least 27 people, including women and children, in the airstrike on the school building in Gaza City where displaced families were sheltering.
    The military said the Dar Al-Arqam school building in Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City had been used a command and control centre by Hamas militants and accused the fighters of deliberately using civilian infrastructure as bases. Hamas denies that it operates among civilians.
    Israel resumed its operation in Gaza with a heavy series of air strikes on March 18 and sent troops back in after a two month pause during which 38 hostages were returned in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
    Over the past two weeks, more than 280,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, according to the United Nations Humanitarian Agency OCHA, adding to the misery of families that have already been displaced multiple times over the past 18 months.
    Israel accuses Hamas of hiding fighters in civilian buildings and says it takes precaution to limit casualties but hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the operation resumed, according to local health authorities. More than 250 of the dead were armed militants, the military says.
    The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel has reduced much of Gaza to ruins and killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave's health authorities.
    (Production: Mahmoud Issa, Fadi Shana, Joelle Kozaily)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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