The IDF states such airstrikes are the result of the placement of military infrastructure and rocket launching from civilian areas, including schools.

[5] Breakdown of deaths by age and gender (analysis by professors Michael Spagat and Daniel Silverman), November 2023[6] Israel's motivations for attacking civilian structures in Gaza remains disputed.

Although Israel claims it is targeting Hamas, rescue teams digging through the rubble of destroyed schools reported that they have found most of the dead to be women and children.

[14][15][16] Sean Carroll, the CEO of the American Near East Refugee Aid, stated scholasticide was an accurate term and described the "targeting" of schools.

[27][28] On 4 November, a UNRWA spokeswoman confirmed reports that Israel had conducted another airstrike against a UN-run school in the Jabalia refugee camp.

[29] In response to the strike, Al Jazeera remarked Israel was "trying to eliminate all sources of survival for the civilian population to force the evacuation to the southern part of Gaza.

Journalists on the scene reported dead bodies everywhere, suggesting the strike may have been an Israeli message to civilians to flee to the southern Gaza Strip.

[33] A video clip surfacing following what has been described as a "massacre" depicts a man walking through several rooms where dozens of corpses can be seen, and distress can be heard throughout the school.

[34] On 9 November 2023, an Israeli airstrike bombed Al-Buraq School on Lababidi Street in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood, north of Gaza City, which was being used by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) as a shelter.

[41][42] On 17 November 2023, an Israeli airstrike bombed Al-Falah School in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of the city, which was being used by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) as a shelter.

[44][45] Due to the communications blackout in the Gaza Strip at the time, rescue teams were not aware of the strike on the school until the following day.

[46] On 23 November 2023, an Israeli airstrike bombed the Abu Hussein School in Jabalia camp, which was being used by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) as a shelter.

"[53] On 15 December 2023, an Israeli airstrike struck the Haifa School in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, which was being used by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) as a shelter.

[59] UNOCHA reported that the IDF had been using the campus as an "an ad hoc detention facility for interrogating Palestinian detainees before their transfer to an unknown location".

[61] This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.On 10 August 2024, Israel struck the Al-Tabaeen school located in eastern Gaza City, which was hosting displaced Palestinians seeking shelter there during the Gaza war.

[71][72] At around 4:40 during Fajr morning prayers in the Al-Tabaeen school, which was being used to house roughly 6,000 refugees and internally displaced Palestinian citizens, three rockets struck the building, causing the structure to collapse.

"[94] Early in the month, Israeli airstrikes on the al-Nasr, Hassan Salama, and Dalal al-Mughrabi schools resulted in dozens of casualties.

[97] On 20 August 2024, the Gaza Civil Defence authority stated that an Israeli airstrike had killed at least 12 people at the Mustafa Hafez school.

[108] According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs, around 500,000 Palestinian children in Gaza are unable to resume their schooling routine due to the ongoing conflict.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education has issued a list of public schools in Gaza that were either severely damaged or destroyed, including the following ones: Etc.

[124] A report by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the Centre for Lebanese Studies, and UNRWA stated that Israel's attacks had set back Palestinian children's education five years and risked creating a "lost generation".

[129] A dire humanitarian crisis, with reports of children suffering from a serious epidemic of gastroenteritis due to the lack of clean water, led to concerns amongst health officials and aid organizations.

[130] Speaking to reporters early in the conflict, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that "Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children.

[142] In a New York Times editorial, Mosab Abu Toha wrote, "How can a teacher — me or anyone else — return to teach children and pretend these same places have not been zones of death and suffering?

"[143] The neologism "scholasticide", also used in 2009 to describe "the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centers of education dear to Palestinian society",[144] saw a reemergence amid the hostilities in 2023 and early 2024.

[146] In a September 2024 social media post, Yousafzai wrote, "I am appalled that Israel keeps targeting schools in Gaza — where thousands of displaced people are sheltering — with indiscriminate strikes.

"[151] Ramy Abdu, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, described the Israeli killing of Palestinian political analyst Ayman Rafati as part of the scholasticide in Gaza.

[152] Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has strongly condemned Israel's escalated assaults on UNRWA-operated schools sheltering displaced individuals in different parts of the Gaza Strip.

The team at Euro-Med Monitor has documented substantial Israeli air and artillery attacks on no less than five UNRWA-operated schools within the last day.