Al-Fakhura School Shelling

The shelling took place on the eleventh day of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's December 2008–January 2009 military campaign in Gaza.[4] As Israeli ground forces entered northern Gaza, large numbers of civilians fled their homes and sought refuge in UNRWA facilities. The UNRWA elementary school on al-Fakhura Street in Jabaliya camp had opened as a shelter the day before the incident, on 5 January 2009.[1]

By the afternoon of 6 January, UNRWA materials recorded 1,368 people sheltering inside the school.[1] Shelter residents included civilians displaced from Beit Lahiya, Al-Salatin, and Al-Atatra, who regarded the facility as a safe haven in part because it flew the UNRWA flag and was located in the middle of the refugee camp.[5] About 90 percent of those sheltering had come from outside Jabaliya camp, largely from al-Atatra; people entering the school were registered by name and searched for weapons.[1] The street outside the school was busy that afternoon, with people arriving to seek shelter, visiting relatives who had recently arrived, and bringing belongings; one witness estimated that approximately 150 people were in the street when the mortars landed.[1]

At approximately 4 p.m. on 6 January 2009, at least four Israeli mortar shells exploded near the al-Fakhura junction.[1] One shell landed in the courtyard of the al-Deeb family home adjacent to the street; three others landed along al-Fakhura Street, with the four impact points spread over a little more than 100 metres.[2]

The shell that struck the al-Deeb family courtyard killed nine family members immediately and two more later died of their injuries, for a total of 11 family deaths; four women and four girls were among those killed in the courtyard.[2] The three shells that landed on al-Fakhura Street killed at least 24 additional people, and witnesses estimated that as many as 40 more were injured.[2] The blasts damaged the side of the school building facing the street, and up to nine people sheltering inside were injured.[1] No shell directly struck the United Nations premises, and no one inside the school was killed.[1] A 16-year-old boy who had been sheltering at the school but was standing in the street when the mortars landed was killed.[1]

Casualty totals were disputed from the outset. Reports discussed by the UN Mission put the total at 42 or 43, while the Mission also recorded an Israeli Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration claim that 12 people were killed, including nine Hamas operatives and three non-combatants.[2] The Mission itself documented at least 35 deaths associated with the four identified impacts and said it did not consider the higher reported figures exaggerated, while acknowledging that it could not independently verify every casualty figure.[2]

Whether Palestinian armed groups fired on Israeli forces from or near the school before the Israeli mortar response was a central and unresolved dispute. The UN Fact-Finding Mission interviewed nine people who had been in the street, the al-Deeb courtyard, or the school itself; none reported hearing firing before the Israeli mortars landed.[1] The Mission was aware of at least two reports that local residents had heard firing in the area, and it accepted for the purposes of its report that some firing by an armed Palestinian group may have prompted the Israeli response.[1]

Israeli accounts of the source of Palestinian fire changed over the course of the incident. An initial IDF statement described mortar fire as having come from inside the school itself; a subsequent account placed the firing position approximately 80 metres from the school; and a later government account said Palestinian mortar fire had continued for nearly an hour before Israeli forces responded after verifying the source and confirming a safety margin from the school.[2] The Mission found these shifting accounts contradictory and considered the later claim about the duration and location of fire lacking in credibility.[2]

The Israeli government's July 2009 report gave a detailed alternative account: an IDF force came under mortar fire from a position about 3.5 kilometres from the force and 80 metres west of the school, the barrage lasted nearly an hour with a mortar fired every few minutes, and an IDF scouting unit along with two independent sources confirmed the firing location.[6] According to that account, the force waited until a 50-metre safety margin from the school was verified, then fired four 120mm mortars, stopping the attack and killing five Hamas operatives.[6] A similar Hamas mortar attack the previous day had reportedly wounded 30 Israeli soldiers.[6]

Official Israeli statements recorded by the Mission named Imad Abu Iskar and Hassan Abu Iskar among those killed and described them as Hamas operatives associated with its military and rocket network.[2] Palestinian witness Mohammed Fuoad Abu Askar, testifying before the Goldstone Commission, stated that there were no armed men in the area at the time.[5]

The UN Fact-Finding Mission concluded that firing at least four mortar shells into a busy street near a shelter holding 1,368 civilians was indiscriminate, that the choice of weapon and the foreseeable civilian risk were unjustified by any military advantage, and that the attack violated the precautionary and proportionality requirements of Additional Protocol I as well as the right to life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[2] The Mission found no evidence that Palestinian armed groups had used the school itself to fire mortars, and said UNRWA had confirmed that Israeli forces knew the school was being used as a civilian shelter.[2]

The Israeli Military Advocate General examined a special command investigation and found that the fire was directed at a legitimate military target and did not violate the Law of Armed Conflict.[3] The Israeli review described the response as four 120mm Keshet mortar rounds, said the commander used the most accurate available weapon and maintained a buffer from the school, and acknowledged a regrettable loss of civilian life.[3] The investigation recommended stricter military-order rules for mortar use in populated areas and near sensitive facilities.[3]

The Israeli government's July 2009 report stated that no mortar round hit the school itself: the rounds landed in the road and at a nearby compound, with shrapnel reportedly injuring several people inside the school and killing or injuring others nearby.[6] It said the Israeli response stopped the mortar attack and killed five Hamas operatives.[6]

The U.S. State Department's 2009 human rights report noted that eight people were injured when mortar rounds struck near the Jabalia Preparatory Boys C School while it was being used as an emergency shelter—a figure slightly different from the UN Mission's account of up to nine injured at the school.[7] The same report noted that the Goldstone Report was widely criticized for alleged methodological failings and legal and factual errors, and that the Israeli government rejected any characterization of its forces as having a policy of deliberately targeting civilians.[7]

Early media coverage frequently described the incident as the shelling of a school, though subsequent reporting and findings from both the UN Mission and the Israeli government agreed that no shell directly struck the school and that no one inside it was killed.[2][1] The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a clarification in February 2009 confirming that Israeli shells had landed outside the school.[8]

In 2011, Richard Goldstone wrote that a subsequent UN committee of independent experts had found that Israel devoted significant resources to investigating more than 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza, while Hamas had not investigated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.[9] Goldstone also wrote that the original mission had lacked evidence to assess the circumstances behind civilian deaths in situations where it alleged Israeli intent, and that Israel's non-cooperation had prevented it from corroborating how many people killed in Gaza were civilians or combatants.[9] This general reassessment applied to the Goldstone Report as a whole; the available sources do not document a specific subsequent finding focused solely on the al-Fakhura incident.

Several central aspects of the al-Fakhura incident remained disputed, especially the total number of deaths, the status of some victims, the source and duration of Palestinian fire, and the legal assessment of the Israeli response. The location of the Israeli impacts was less disputed: both the UN Mission and the Israeli report said that no round hit the school itself and that no one inside it was killed.[1][6]

The Mission documented at least 35 deaths associated with the four impacts it identified and discussed reports of 42 or 43 deaths that it could not fully verify. It also recorded an Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration claim of 12 deaths, including nine Hamas operatives and three non-combatants.[2][2] Israeli statements and Palestinian organizational material cited by the Jerusalem Center identified some of those killed as members of armed or terrorist organizations, while Mohammed Fuoad Abu Askar described relatives and other victims as civilians.[2][5]

The source and duration of Palestinian mortar fire were also unresolved across the competing accounts. The Mission found that Israel's changing explanations undermined their credibility, while the Israeli government maintained that commanders had cross-verified the firing location, used the most accurate available weapon, and maintained a safety buffer from the school.[2][3] These disagreements, together with wider criticism of the Goldstone Report's methodology, made the incident one of the most disputed episodes of Operation Cast Lead.[7]