Shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 3, 2025, at least 16 civilians, including at least two women and 10 children, were killed and about 20 others, including a pregnant woman and a child, were injured in an alleged Israeli drone strike on the Mustafa Hafez School in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, Gaza. According to the eyewitnesses, many victims, including women and children, were burnt alive, and those injured also suffered from severe burns.

Twitter/X account @AJA_Egypt reported the incident at 2:33 a.m., informing about 11 deaths in the shelling of Mustafa Hafez School in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood, and marking the information as urgent. The Palestinian agency Safa corroborated this information, reporting the same death toll. Several news outlets and independent online users confirmed the location of the attack. Wafa News agency reported 13 killed and dozens of wounded, while Al Jazeera Egypt shared their monitoring of the situation, reporting 17 killed and dozens of injuries at the Mustafa Hafez School turned refugee center. @ahmed_hamdan0 shared on Telegram that 17 civilians were killed and “about” 20 were injured at the school.

Airwars researchers identified the names of 19 people killed in the attack, among them 17 civilians and two men with contested civilian status.

Doha Hajila and her three children

A 27-year-old woman named Doha Hisham Hamdan Abdo Hajila was killed alongside her three small children: six-year-old daughter Sham Muhammad Hajila, five-year-old son Khaled Muhammad Hajila, and one-year-old son Adam Muhammad Hajila. According to the Twitter/X post by @Qadeyah1, the father of the three children was killed at the beginning of the conflict. The post was accompanied by a collage of pictures of three children. The first image shows a young girl, Sham, smiling and wearing pink glasses. She has a red and blue zipper hoodie on, with white letters on the front and a bear on the zipper. Another photo shows a young boy, Khaled, slightly younger than his sister. He has brown hair covering his forehead and blue eyes. In the photo, he is smiling and is wearing a gray hoodie. The last photo shows a baby boy, Adam, with dark brown hair and large blue eyes. He is wearing a cream colored sweater with drawings on the front.

A Facebook post by Yehya al-Yaqobi lamented the destiny of Doha, who “never recovered from the massacre of her husband’s martyrdom at the beginning of the war, and now she is joining him. Her young children, who were so beautiful, were charred inside their shrouds and are now known only by their names.” He emphasized that Doha and her children took refuge at the school, and “The shelter turned into a crematorium.”

Dr. Rami Abdo, head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor who lost his cousin Doha Hajila and three of her children in this bombing, pointed out to Al Jazeera that the Israeli military “issued evacuation orders for the residents of eastern Gaza, then targeted them when they sought refuge in the west of the city with incendiary and destructive shells, until their bodies were charred.” He added, “In this school, the scene of a father cradling his child in his final moments was a stark testament to the horrors civilians in Gaza are subjected to.”

Saqr Hajila and his family

40-year-old Saqr Ahmed Hajila was killed alongside his 33-year-old wife, Iktmal Hassan Hajila (Yassin), and their five children: three sons, 13-year-old Tariq Saqr Ahmed Hajila, four-year-old Iyad Saqr Ahmed Hajila, and eight-year-old Mohammed Bakr Saqr Ahmed Hajila, and two daughters, one-year-old Lynn Saqr Ahmed Hajila and Dina Saqr Ahmed Hajila.

Additional civilians killed

Two young men, 29-year-old Yazan Hassan Hajila (Abu Saleh) and 24-year-old Ahmed Iyad Hajila, were also among the victims of the deadly attack.

On Facebook, Mahmmoud G ALsamoni mourned the death of his friend Ahmed Hajila, writing, “My neighbour, friend, and brother, the kind and well-mannered young man, son of the martyred family, Ahmed Iyad Hajila, is a martyr.“ He added an image of Ahmed, a young man with short dark hair and a dark moustache, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with the Nike logo.

Mahmoud Abu Bakr grieved the death of Yazan Hassan Hajila in a Facebook tribute, calling him a “kind-hearted man.” The post was accompanied by an image of Yazan, a young man wearing a grey three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a brown tie.

17-year-old Khalil Ibrahim Abu Ajwa was also killed in the deadly attack on the Mustafa Hafez School. The late journalist Anas al-Sharif shared an emotional video on his Twitter/X account @AnasAlSharif0, showing a grief-stricken mother, Umm Khalil Abu Ajwa, bidding farewell to her only son Khalil. She is seen clinging to the dead body of her son, embracing it and exclaiming that he is a “shaheed” (“martyr”).

Noureddine Shwaidih mourned the death of his cousin Khalil on Facebook, noting that he was the “son of the martyr Khalil Ibrahim Abu Ajwa.” In the image attached, Khalil is seen standing outdoors in a black T-shirt and a black sports suit, gently smiling.

Released Israeli prisoners

@Bisan_Shrafi shared photos of three released Israeli prisoners deported from the occupied West Bank to Gaza, as part of the 2011 Shalit deal, who were killed in the strike: 51-year-old Mehdi Shavoor al-Tamimi (from Hebron), 43-year-old Ayman Youssef Abu Dawood (from Hebron), and 52-year-old Bassam Abu Sneineh (from Jerusalem). Facebook posts from Sahat – Squares and Dalal Dalal added that Bassam Abu Sneineh’s child was also killed, and included an image of a deceased man and child wrapped in a shroud with the man’s arm wrapped around the young child – both appear to also be covered in ash.

The Twitter/X account MiddleEastBuka shared the screenshots of family tributes in which Mehdi Shavoor al-Tamimi and Ayman Youssef Abu Dawood were referred to as “mujahids” – Mehdi is described as “a mujahideen, then a prison, then a deportee” which may indicate along with his age that he was a militant before his imprisonment and in offering condolences to his wife Nabeela Turky, Ayman is referred to as a mujahid. As this alludes to their possible militant status, Airwars considers them “contested civilians” until further information comes to light.

Munitions

@NemoAnno on X/Twitter shared screengrabs from ‘Palestine Today’, a news channel whose footage included imagery of munition remnants with visible inscriptions at the location of the school. They later shared photos of nighttime footage showing fires burning as well as their locations in the school. Fires appear to be burning inside a room of the school as well as in a tent next to the building. Photos show extreme destruction, with debris flooding the ground and plumes of black smoke in the sky.

Accounts of eyewitnesses

Al Jazeera reported the experience of a child, Islam Hajila, who was taking refuge at the school, which had been transformed into a shelter for dozens of families. He had heard the strike at dawn, which hit the neighbouring building, which housed many of his relatives: “I saw mutilated bodies and burned bodies everywhere. We were sleeping, and suddenly we heard a huge explosion. The windows and doors flew over our heads. We ran out and found our relatives torn apart, burned, and engulfed in flames.”According to Islam, survivors tried to put out the fire with water jugs they used for drinking but they had been punctured by shrapnel so they had to put out the flames with their bare hands, saving the water to put out the fire consuming the bodies of those injured. , and she admitted having seen “mutilated bodies and burned corpses everywhere.” 13 of his family members were reportedly killed in the strike, including his cousin Saqr and his wife Iktmal, as well as his uncle’s second wife in the strike, his brother was injured, and his cousins “were burned”.

Another child who spoke to Al Jazeera, a 13-year-old Hala Hajila, was asleep when the explosion occurred. She recounted what happened, saying, “I was asleep, and suddenly everything around me shattered. We went out to find the second section completely burned, and I saw a little girl burning, and the fire was consuming her entire body. I saw two brothers embracing each other, stuck together by the burn, their flesh melting from the fire.” Hala said to the journalist that she carried her little brother and ran towards another school where her grandmother was staying, fearing further shelling.

In the article, a video is shown of a reporter at the scene of the attack. In the video, the burned school is shown, barely held up by pillars. Inside, everything is in disarray and charred. Outside of the building, there is ash covering the ground, littered with broken objects. Inside the damaged building are several children, digging around. They each pull out clothes or other undamaged goods and put them into bags. The article’s thumbnail shows a young boy walking through the rummage, an item of clothing in his hand.

Video reports

The video reportage filmed by an Al Jazeera correspondent at the place of the attack contained additional information about the devastating strike. A severely damaged building of the school with a number of missing walls was seen behind the correspondent’s back. Small children were looking for the belongings of the victims amidst the debris and rubble.

The correspondent claimed that the death toll was likely to rise as a number of those injured suffered severe burns as a result of the flames engulfing their bodies. He said the following: “Dozens of wounded who were transported by ambulances in the early hours of the morning while they were asleep were bombed by alleged Israeli drones with more than one missile that devoured a number of classrooms, which led to destruction in the area and the ignition of a number of classrooms, and smoke is still rising as a result of the fire that broke out in the school. There is also a state of sadness among the people in the school because they receive new news every hour about the martyrdom of a number of their relatives who were injured and who are receiving treatment in Al-Shifa Hospital.” The reporter also talked about other similar incidents and then emphasized that the Israeli military was pushing civilians to go to the western areas of Gaza, convincing them that they were safe, but they were still attacked, as it happened with the Hajila family members, who were living in this classroom and were killed.

On Twitter/X, @refugeesps shared a video report by Amer al-Sultan, showing the aftermath of the attack. A middle-aged Palestinian woman, wearing a red flowery headscarf, spoke to a reporter, emotionally describing what she had experienced: “We moved to more than one school, and in the end, we came to Mustafa Hafez School. Every now and then, the Israeli military would attack the school and bomb it, and we would flee for a certain period and return when the pressure eased. This night the attack was intense, and, as I saw, everyone was a martyr, everyone was wounded. The classrooms were burned, and there were no mattresses or clothes to dress the injured, who were drenched in their blood. I saw a girl drowned in her blood, and there was no clothing for her to wear. It was an unnaturally terrifying sight – you see people mutilated or injured. That was at 2:15 at night, we were asleep, and we woke up to a terrible sight like this. I saw the fire, and I could not move forward.”

Twitter/X user @ShahidAlmasirah shared the video report filmed by Duaa Rouqa – Occupied Palestine. A female journalist talked in the introduction about several “massacres” attributed to the Israeli military. Then she moved to the Hafez School compound, showing the remaining children’s clothes lying on the ground, and saying: “The attack on this school led to the martyrdom of nearly 15 people and injury of dozens more. We will talk with eyewitnesses to learn more about what happened here.”

Muhammad Hajila, a surviving member of the family, told the following while standing at the premises of the destroyed school: “We were sitting around 2:00 a.m., and the children were asleep. I was awake and heard the sound of a strange aircraft that I had not heard since the beginning of the war. Then I heard three successive explosions within 20 seconds. I quickly got up and entered the tent to check on my children. I saw fire burning all around them, so I woke them up and carried whoever I could and woke up whoever I could. My relatives were injured, and my wife was injured, so I took them out and carried them to a safe area. My seven brothers were here in this row, and when I looked over here, I saw my brother reciting the Shahada, and his brain was sticking out, so I left him with that…”  Muhammad went on: “In the class, I also had relatives, so I saw them take out two brothers; their father was a martyr since the beginning of the war. I saw the two brothers charred and hugging each other.”

Then the correspondent talked to another woman, holding a young boy on her knees: “The mother of this child is pregnant and injured and is in Al-Shifa Hospital. Our children and young men were all injured and burned, everyone in the hospital, and I stayed here with this child. What can I say, and what can we do? How long will this continue? Until now, I cannot describe what happened. It is a disaster. My daughter was sleeping safely.” Then the reporter talked to an elderly woman, wearing a black and white flowery hijab. The woman said that she didn’t know where to go or where to take the children and the injured, as there was no safe place anymore.

Photo documentation

@ansar_alah_1111 shared horrific photos of the charred bodies of children at the Mustafa Hafez School. Images show bodies that had turned completely black in some areas, with skin peeling off. Their bodies were lying in twisted positions, most likely from the pain they endured.

A heartbreaking farewell between brothers was shared by @9w on Facebook. In a beautifully worded caption, “two young men stare at their martyred brother’s face for a long time, as if they want to quench their thirst with his features before burying him.” One brother has blood covering the shoulder of his white shirt. In the video, they are holding their deceased brother’s head, waving flies away from his face.

@Yehya al Yaqobi shared more photos from this scene showing one of the men kneeling over his brother in his body bag, holding onto him. Next to the deceased brother are four or five more bodies. The photo caption reads, “her young children, who were so beautiful, were charred inside their shrouds and are now known only by their names,” in reference to Doha Hisham Abdo’s children.

AbdouBourek on Facebook shared a photo of a man holding the heads of two children, wrapped in blankets, who were recovered in the aftermath of the strike.

Attribution of the strike

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the bombing to the Israeli military. The sources differed on the nature of the strike. Some sources, including news agency Safa, mentioned the shelling of the school, while others, including Mohammed Awad on Facebook and @NemoAnno on Twitter/X, alleged that the Israeli military carried out airstrikes. According to Yehya Al Yaqobi on Facebook and some eyewitnesses, the Israeli military used three suicide drones.

Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the tenth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list, which was released on July 16, 2025. Additional ages of victims have been found by cross-checking names against lists of fatalities shared online by Genocide in Gaza, which has a list of “martyrs” of Israeli forces.