GAZA CITY – A routine morning at a Gaza City nursery turned into chaos when an Israeli operation to detain a Hamas official unfolded around it, leaving nearly 200 children between the ages of 4 and 5 trapped between gunfire, airstrikes, and a staff trying to convince them it was fireworks.
Doaa Qadeeh was still shaking hours later. Speaking haltingly, her voice breaking, she told me over the phone: “My body would not stop trembling.” She could barely get the words out.
Qadeeh is the head of the kindergarten department at Abdul Aziz Model School, in Gaza City’s western Katiba area, across from the American Hospital.
Earlier on Tuesday, she had gone live on video in the middle of an Israeli operation, pleading for the safety of the children in her care.
“I have more than 200 children right now,” she said in the video, sobbing, as the sound of explosions and children crying filled the background. “Isn’t the war supposed to be over?” Across from the hospital, the location of the school, she said, was meant to be one of the safer areas in Gaza – a place where children could come to learn and live in peace and security. Instead, she and 200 children were being evacuated by the Red Cross under bombing and explosions.
Around her, parents, ambulances, and small buses scrambled to move children and families out. Some parents ran toward the school clutching their children the moment they reached them. Others ran through the crowd screaming out their children’s names, panicked, unable to find them.