In a Rafah school called ‘Hope’, Gaza IDPs seek shelter from Israel’s bombs

The staff and students at Al-Amal Rehabilitation Society have pivoted to helping displaced people coming to Rafah.

Rafah, Gaza Strip – The rooms and corridors of Rafah’s Al-Amal Rehabilitation Society, a two-storey building in a sunny yard filled with trees, and a children’s play area off to the side, are as lively as they have ever been.

But instead of it being just the deaf students who are usually bustling around, the classrooms are occupied by families fleeing Israel’s relentless assault on the people of Gaza.

Rafah, at the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, now hosts some 1.5 million people displaced by the endless, indiscriminate Israeli bombing from other parts of the Gaza Strip into an area of about 63sq km (24sq miles).

The first arrivals poured into the fixed structures: homes of friends or family, abandoned buildings, and schools that were not in use because Israel’s war on Gaza had paralysed life.

Some of the schools were run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) but the agency is no longer able to fully operate them as shelters as it did several times before during previous Israeli assaults on Gaza.