UNRWA schools in Gaza provide refuge for displaced families
The Gaza Strip's many schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency sheltered many Palestinians who lost their houses during the fighting.
Mithqal Salama al-Sarsawi and his family are living in a classroom in one of the Gaza Strip's UNRWA schools after their house was bombed by Israel for a fourth time in the latest 11-day conflict.
Sarsawi, who is from the Turkmen area of the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya, told Al-Monitor that he and his family have taken refuge in the schools during every war and military confrontation in the Gaza Strip. Their house, which close to the eastern border of the besieged enclave, was destroyed four times over the course of 12 years, during the Israeli wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and in the most recent round of fighting in May.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Israeli airstrikes left 248 Palestinians dead, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly people, as well as some 1,948 injured.
UNRWA said the Israeli attacks displaced more than 75,000 Palestinians from their homes, of whom 28,700 sought refuge in the UN agency’s schools after their homes were demolished. Others sought shelter at their relatives’ homes in other Palestinian areas.
