Duaa Qadih: A Gazan Teacher Who Saved 200 Children from a Massacre

Gaza – Agencies: As Israeli occupation forces bombarded and fired indiscriminately to cover the abduction of Ma’een al-Arabid, head of Gaza’s Internal Security Apparatus, 200 children were trapped in a nearby kindergarten, their lives in danger. The operation took place under a heavy barrage of airstrikes involving dozens of warplanes of various types, with shelling providing cover, and resulted in the martyrdom of several Palestinians, including children, and injured many. The operation could have led to a massacre, as director Duaa Qadih found herself trapped with 200 children amid the sounds of shelling and gunfire. Qadih appeared in a video attempting to calm the children’s fears about the bombardment, saying, “We have evacuated the school we are in. Is this the war they say has ended?” She added, “They are children who want to live in peace and safety, who want to learn. Is it right that they face bombs and explosives?”

After the Israeli occupation destroyed dozens of schools, some of which were converted into shelters for displaced persons, Qadih led an educational initiative about two years ago by turning a canvas tent into a classroom in the Deir al-Balah area in central Gaza, to maintain the children’s connection to the educational process. In an interview with the “Tawasol” program on Al Arabiya TV, Qadih detailed the incident, stating that the first thing teachers thought of was removing the children from danger and minimizing the harm present in that location. She said the kindergarten housed orphaned children and war-injured children suffering from difficult psychological conditions, so the first idea that came to mind was to move the children inside the kindergarten, have them lie down and crawl on their hands and knees, and evacuate them from the place safely and with the least possible harm. She added, “These children are a trust in our hands. Although the school bore signs indicating it was an educational institution, none of that prevented the occupation from carrying out its crime.” She noted that the incident set these children back to square one, after they had spent three years treating the psychological effects dominating them as a result of the war. She concluded, “The war has not ended in Gaza. The bleeding continues, and danger exists everywhere, especially for children.”