"It's an order—destroy the neighborhood so Arabs can't return"
Israel's destruction of Gaza’s schools.
Earlier this week, The Guardian published an investigation into Israel’s systematic targeting of schools in Gaza using the pretext that Hamas militants are hiding among civilians to strike. The overwhelming majority of school buildings in Gaza, which are commonly used to shelter displaced families, have been damaged and need significant repairs or rebuilding. Shockingly, the Guardian even listed four schools that have been marked by the Israeli military “as potential targets to be bombed”: Halawa, al-Rafaa’i, Nusiba, and Halima Sa’dia in northern Gaza.
According to the Guardian’s sources, the school targeting “followed a loosening of controls on actions targeting Hamas operatives at sites with large numbers of civilians present.” While the impunity of the Israeli military in targeting schools that shelter civilians may have increased, the destruction of schools, especially in northern Gaza, stretches back months.
Drop Site contributors Sami Vanderlip and Younis Tirawi have followed the Givati Brigade as they have worked toward the razing of Gaza since October 7, 2023. They zeroed in on a span of a few days in October 2024, during which the Givati Brigade was responsible not just for enacting forced displacement orders but for burning three schools in northern Gaza.
The most striking part of the following report is the interview conducted with an anonymous Israeli soldier, describing how the unit received and carried out orders to wipe out northern Gaza as part of the Generals’ Plan. “I’m the small soldier, bro,” he told Drop Site. “That’s the mission; that’s what I carry out. But if you’re asking for my personal opinion, I really don’t know what to tell you; it’s simply the mission, bro.”
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“You just need to destroy the neighborhood, so that they can’t come back there. Why to destroy? That’s the mission; that’s what I carry out.”
Those are the words of an Israeli sergeant from the 432 Tzabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade who spoke to Drop Site News on condition of anonymity due to Israeli military policy. Givati was one of the brigades involved in implementing the General’s Plan—a policy devised by former General Giora Eiland that used the lack of access to water, food, and medicine as a weapon of war to force the besieged Palestinians in the north of Gaza to starve or surrender.
During the execution of the General’s Plan from October 2024 to January 2025, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes in north Gaza—with many being forced into makeshift shelters at various places, including schools. The Givati Brigade, in which this sergeant serves, was one of the first brigades of the Israeli military to enter Gaza at the start of their genocidal assault. Over the past twenty months, they have taken part in effectively wiping the towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Rafah off the map.
Hallel Biton Rosen, an Israeli military correspondent, has come to use a term to refer to significant military operations by the Givati Brigade: Purple nights. Purple is a reference to the color of the berets of the Givati Brigade.
The Givati Brigade destroyed vast swathes of Gaza’s neighborhoods throughout Israel’s assault, and during the General’s Plan, in particular, they destroyed numerous structures where forcibly displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Drop Site identified three specific schools that were set on fire by Israeli troops of the 432 Battalion in October 2024—with photos shared on their social media accounts.
The Israeli military has not claimed to have found anything related to Hamas and its militant activities in any of the cases we've investigated. The press office did not respond to specific inquiries by Drop Site, but, after publication, claimed that the Israeli military “does not have, and has never had, a military policy aimed at the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure” despite multiple reports by the United Nations and other international organizations to the contrary.
Many of Gaza’s schools have been converted into displacement shelters and refugee camps. In early May, the Education Cluster—an organization co-led by UNICEF and Save the Children—published their latest analysis that sought to verify the damage caused by the Israeli military on Gaza’s education system since the war began. It found that 100% of the school buildings in the North Gaza governorate have been either directly hit or damaged.
As the Israeli assault intensified in northern Gaza starting in October 2024, the schools weren’t spared either. According to Education Cluster’s analysis, the last quarter of 2024 saw that 11 out of the 18 schools directly hit were located in northern Gaza.
As of May 7, 2025, 95% of schools in the Gaza Strip have sustained some level of damage, with 62% of school buildings that have been used by IDP as shelters being ”directly hit.” The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in April estimated that at least 88% of school buildings (501 out of 564) in the Gaza Strip will require either full reconstruction or major rehabilitation.
An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in November 2024 investigated a series of attacks on schools conducted by the Israeli military in Gaza. Their investigation cited 18 incidents, naming the attacks on the Abu Hussein, Hafasa, and Al-Fawaka schools in Jabalia, the Khalifa bin Zayid and Mahdia al-Shawa schools in Beit Lahia, and the Asma School in Shati refugee camp in particular.
In response to Haaretz’s investigation, the Israeli military said that all incidents “are being reviewed by the FFA Mechanism that investigates unusual operations to study them and draw lessons from them and factually assess them, and to examine whether there is any suspected violation of orders, or of the law. When the review is completed, the findings will be submitted to the military prosecutor.” The military press office did not respond to questions from Drop Site about updates on those investigations.
Jameel al-Masri, a 63-year-old Palestinian man who was used as a human shield for the Givati Brigade over a period of three months—and was interviewed by Drop Site—also confirmed the deliberate destruction of schools by the Israeli military. “We need to empty all the schools,” the soldiers told al-Masri. He was ordered to head to the school, put the displaced civilians in lines, and move them out. The full interview with al-Masri is here.
When asked about why they were instructed to destroy buildings, the sergeant who spoke to Drop Site said: “I’m the small soldier, bro. That’s the mission, that’s what I carry out. But if you’re asking for my personal opinion, I really don’t know what to tell you, it’s simply the mission, bro. If you ask me, these are buildings of Gazans that are—let’s say there’s a location that we think there are terrorists there and stuff,” they said. “It’s a location, it’s a location that you don’t need anymore. And there’s a place you need to flatten, so you just flatten it.” This was true of schools as well as many other types of buildings.
“Broken and destroyed buildings,” he said, are “most likely places that terrorists will be hiding and stuff. Terrorists hide in shafts and fire anti-tank missiles at you or fire a round and go back to where they came from, get it? … So we, you know, we destroy as much as possible, so there’s nothing left, so they don’t have anywhere to hide and then you can’t find them.”
“It's an order—destroy the neighborhood so Arabs can't return.”
Beit Lahia Girls Preparatory School "A"
Around 9 a.m. on October 20, 2024, an Israeli quadcopter approached the Beit Lahia Girls Preparatory School near the northern border of Gaza. Neveen Mohammed al-Dawawsah, a 21-year-old paramedic and resident of Beit Lahia, was one of hundreds of people sheltering there. Over the quadcopter’s loudspeaker, a voice ordered: “Everyone here, get out. You are in a combat zone. IDF warns you,” Neveen recounted in testimony from the day.
"Chaos and fear engulfed the school," Neveen told the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Families that used the school as a shelter scrambled to pack their belongings. Then, ten minutes later, the first explosion hit.
Neveen was still inside a classroom, preparing to flee. "I rushed out of fear to the yard to find all the people there targeted by shells while stones and rubble were filling the place,” she said. “Tens of dead bodies were scattered in the yard amid injured people’s screams for help; most of them with amputations.”
Neveen pulled out her phone and began recording. The “heinous crime had collected the lives of ten and injured forty more,” she said. “I could provide aid for few but could not do all the work alone amid no medical supplies available except for the first aid kit that I had.”
Footage taken by a nurse who was forced to displace shows the aftermath of the Israeli massacre on the school with numerous bloodied bodies strewn across the ground.
Before October 7th, 2023, the Beit Lahia Girls Preparatory School served roughly 3,000 students and 100 teachers. The school, which was run by the UN Relief & Works Agency, made international news in February 2023 when a London hospital was compelled to take down a display of artwork created by students of the UN-run school in Gaza following a complaint filed by UK Lawyers for Israel “on behalf of some Jewish patients, who said that they felt vulnerable and victimised by this display.”
Then, like many schools in northern Gaza, it became home to hundreds of forcibly displaced families. Conditions inside were unbearable, where 30 or 40 families crammed into a single classroom that could only fit three families each—400 displaced families total. Water was extremely scarce, leading to a startling lack of minimum healthcare standards: each person could only have half a liter a day, before the Israeli military bombed the school’s main water well in early October 2024.
The strike coincided with the start of Israel's bloodiest campaign in northern Gaza. Amid constant attacks across the north, the Israeli military issued new displacement orders on social media, forcing residents to flee south as part of the so-called "Generals' Plan," aimed at depopulating the region above the so-called Netzarim corridor.
Neveen left the school on foot with hundreds of others, walking south to Gaza City. Then, Israeli soldiers from the 432 Tzabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade entered the school and set it on fire.
Two weeks later, an Israeli soldier named Itay Pavlov, a combat medic with the 432 Tzabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade, uploaded photos of the incident to his Instagram. He and a fellow soldier stood straight-faced in front of the Beit Lahia Girls School as it was ablaze behind them.
Hamad Bin Khalifa and Kuwait Upper Secondary Female School
In mid-October 2024, the Israeli military intensified its attacks on the homes of Palestinians in Jabaliya refugee camp. These attacks included fire belts that targeted the residents of Jabaliya as well as bombs being dropped on homes, which continued through the night.
Displaced Palestinians who sought refuge in schools weren’t spared either. The UN Abu Husein school and the UNRWA-run Hafwa and Al-Fakhoura clinics were targeted, leaving numerous dead and scores injured.
On October 19, 2024, after surrounding the area, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to leave. The military published scenes showing tanks surrounding the buildings and the remaining residents being rounded up and forced to leave the area.
The Hamad Bin Khalifa and Kuwait Upper Secondary Female School in Jabalia became a shelter for internally displaced people near the Indonesian Hospital. According to the Education Cluster, Hamad Bin Khalifa had roughly 998 students and roughly 42 teachers and Kuwait had roughly 991 students and 40 teachers prior to October 7th.
After the displaced Palestinians who used the schools as a shelter were forcibly moved from the area, Israeli soldiers of the 432 Tzabar Battalion took over the area and set the schools alight.
Photos uploaded by soldiers of the 432 Tzabar Battalion to Instagram operating in the area show the Hamad Bin Khalifa school being burned.
Aleppo Elementary Mixed School B
(Also known as UN School Halab Elementary Co-ed A and B)
In October of 2024, the Tzabar battalion burned another school in the same area. This school—the Aleppo school—had been the site of a massacre months earlier. In December 2023, Israeli forces executed numerous members of the Abu Salah family outside the Aleppo school while they held a white flag. Shelling was intense around the school, killing and injuring many of the people that were displaced there.
The incident, in which seven members of the family were killed by snipers, was investigated by the New York Times in September 2024. On December 6, 2023, a boy from the Abu Salah family came out of the Hamad Bin Khalifa School. He went out to see what was left after the Israeli bulldozers left. An Israeli sniper shot him in the heart. Family members heard and found the gunfire. The father, mother, and four other children carried his body on a stretcher and directed it to the cemetery, raising a white flag. After the burial, they started walking back to the Hamad bin Khalifa school, where they were sheltering. As they walked, still carrying a white flag, an Israeli sniper killed them all just outside the Aleppo School.
The following day, the Israeli army began displacing people from the area. The daughter, who had not followed her family to the burial, encountered the bodies of her six family members on the road. The Israeli military did not allow her and her relatives to reach them. A few weeks later, the army withdrew from the area. Residents searching the remaining piles of soil found the remains of the family's bodies; Israeli bulldozers had buried them with waste.
Months after the execution of the Abu Salah family, Israeli soldiers of the 432 Tzabar Battalion retook control of the Aleppo school and burned it in October 2024. Israeli soldier Gal Stamker uploaded a photo of the burning school on October 21, 2024 to his Instagram:
Having served in all areas of Gaza from the beginning of the assault, the sergeant explained that destroying neighborhoods was a direct policy decision to ensure Gaza remains uninhabitable long after any ceasefire was reached.
“When you need to take apart a place, it’s so that the Arabs won’t come back. And suddenly you say ‘Well, I already destroyed that building, so there’s nothing else to do there,’” said the Givati Brigade sergeant. “The mission is to take it all down. It’s to simply take down everything that’s there. So that there’s nothing left.”
Satellite images taken over the areas of the schools also show the damage. On October 14, 2024, the schools are still being used as shelters with tents appearing visible. However, in satellite images taken on October 24, 2024, the tents of displaced Palestinians are no longer there.
After having burned numerous schools and destroyed much of the area, Ori Narkis, a soldier from the 432 Tzabar Battalion, posted a photo to his Instagram story on November 1 posing in front of the destroyed neighborhood of Jablia adding a green tick emoji.
Continued Destruction
As 2024 came to a close, the 432 Tzabar Battalion’s destruction of Gaza continued apace. Soldiers continued to post videos of them shooting and the detonation of buildings in Jabaliya to their social media. “The woman builds and the rifleman destroys,” reads the caption to one video of an already destroyed multi-story building being shot at until it completely collapses. “Shabbat Shalom Jabaliya,” read another caption to the same video.
Posted December 27, 2024 with the caption, “The woman builds and the rifleman destroys.” Obtained by Younis Tirawi.
The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians remains, as ever, the clear goal of the Israeli government in Gaza. “The Gazans we evacuate will not return. They will not be there; we will control there. There is no other target. Any other target is a bluff,” Netanyahu added.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed Netanyahu’s sentiment when it came to the destruction of Gaza during a recent press conference: “We are annihilating everything that remains in the Strip,” he declared, “simply because it is one big city of terror.” Smotrich boasted about the sheer impunity that Israel still enjoys as it intensifies its genocide in Gaza: “We are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins with unprecedented destruction, and the world still hasn’t stopped us.”
Bezalel Smotrich’s recent press conference.
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I just sit here... looking at the "Write a comment..." window and... I just don't have words. At least none that I feel comfortable posting on social media. Thanks for your excellent and incredibly brave reporting.
Clearly fits what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says: genocide that's a continuation of 1948. The difference here is that these aren't reluctant Holocaust survivors who were convinced by their superiors. But they're mirrors of Hitlers soldiers just following orders.