Israeli army shoots, kills 9-year-old girl in her Gaza classroom

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Israeli army shoots, kills 9-year-old girl in her Gaza classroom
Mourners attend the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Mohammad Wishah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 8 April. (Ramzi Abu Amer APA images)

As Israel carried out massive strikes on Lebanon Wednesday (April 08), killing nearly 300 people in a massive bombing spree in Beirut and the south, Israeli drones continued to target and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

By Nora Barrows-Friedman, Reposted from The Electronic Intifada , April 10, 2026

On April 09, 9-year-old Ritaj Abdul Raouf Rihan was shot and killed by Israeli gunfire inside her classroom in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian education ministry and local news sources

Ritaj was sitting at her desk at Abu Ubaida bin al-Jarrah School when she was shot in front of her classmates, causing severe psychological trauma among the students, with the ministry describing the killing as a “brutal and horrific crime.”

“Every day, I take my daughter to school so she can learn like any other child in the world,” Ritaj’s father, Abdulrahman, told reporters Maha Husseini and Hani Abu Rezeq at Middle East Eye.

“Today, about an hour after I dropped her off, I received the news that my daughter had been killed. I never expected to receive news of her killing while she was in a place of learning. It was a shock beyond words.”

Abdulrahman added: “We were happy she had grown up enough and remained alive and healthy after two years of genocide to carry a school bag and notebooks. She was finally back at school. She was clever and loved school.”

On April 08, Israel killed journalist Mohammad Wishah while he was driving in his car west of Gaza City, setting the entire vehicle ablaze.

Wishah was a reporter with Al Jazeera.

Journalist and The Electronic Intifada contributor Mohammad Asad filmed the wreckage of Wishah’s vehicle right after the Israeli attack, as Palestinian police and bystanders pulled the burning car away from a nearby structure.

Reporter Nahed Hajjaj filmed the scenes outside of Al-Shifa Hospital as bystanders who were injured in the strike that killed Mohammad Wishah were rushed to the emergency department.

The Gaza Government Media Office said that with Wishah’s assassination, 262 journalists have now been killed by Israel since October 2023.

Two other Palestinians were killed in a separate drone strike in eastern Gaza City on Wednesday, according to the Wafa news agency.

On 6 April, Israel-backed armed gangs instigated a massacre by the Israeli military on a school sheltering displaced families in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.

According to local sources, the gangs raided the school and sparked clashes. Israeli warplanes then bombed the area, killing at least 10 Palestinians and wounding dozens more.

The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that another person was killed and several others were wounded in a separate attack on the same day in the town of al-Qarara, east of Khan Younis.

Witnesses told Anadolu that Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian vehicles in an area outside the so-called yellow line.

Reporter Mahmoud Aliwa captured video of a man in agony after his brother was killed in an Israeli attack in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, also on Monday. A child was also injured in the strike.

A Palestinian man was killed and others were injured on Sunday, 5 April, in an Israeli airstrike on a group of people in Gaza City.

Another four Palestinians were killed when Israel bombed a home in al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, also on Sunday, while Israeli forces shot dead a young man with disabilities in Khan Younis.

World Health Organization suspends medical evacuations

The World Health Organization announced that it was suspending its facilitation of patient evacuations from the Rafah crossing to Egypt this week after one of its contracted employees was killed in an Israeli attack on their United Nations vehicle.

Majdi Aslan, the 54-year-old driver, was pronounced dead following the attack, according to local reports. Another WHO staff member was wounded.

The Rafah crossing, which had been closed for nearly two years by Israel, then partially reopened, then closed again for weeks at the onset of the attacks on Iran, has been the only way for Palestinians in Gaza to seek medical treatment abroad or to be reunited with their family members back in Gaza.

Baby formula shortage

Medical experts in Gaza are warning of a renewed shortage of baby formula as Israel’s draconian blockade remains in place.

Ahmad al-Farra, the director of the pediatric department at Nasser Medical Complex, told The New Arab that infant formula, including those with specialized nutritional supplements, are running dangerously low.

He said, “The problem isn’t just quantity; the types available change constantly. One type lasts no more than two weeks before it runs out and is replaced by another, which negatively affects children’s health.”

Many formula stocks are close to their expiration dates, further jeopardizing child health, he added.

The cries of infants and the anxiety of parents underscore the urgency of the situation, The New Arab stated.

Al-Farra warned that without immediate intervention, the shortage could escalate into a widespread health catastrophe, increasing malnutrition and disease among the most vulnerable members of society.

“Children require a consistent and continuous supply of formula to avoid serious health risks. Any delay will exacerbate malnutrition and endanger lives. Immediate action is needed to secure infant formula before this crisis turns into an uncontrollable tragedy,” al-Farra said.

Israeli settlers, soldiers kill Palestinians

Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers killed a youth and attacked and kidnapped Palestinian children in a series of rampages this week, as the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry called for urgent international sanctions on Israeli settlers and the settlement colony project.

The ministry said the burning of homes and vehicles constituted “organized and repeated crimes directed by the occupation state” aimed at imposing a coercive environment to drive Palestinians from their land through organized terror.

The ministry called for urgent international action “beyond condemnation,” including clear and binding sanctions on the settlement system and the designation of occupier militias on international terrorism lists, the news agency Anadolu reported.

On Wednesday night, Israeli settlers and soldiers attacked and killed a youth, Alaa Khaled Sbeih, during a violent rampage into the village of Taysir, east of Tubas in the northern West Bank.

The Arabs48 news site reported that settlers attacked the village as Israeli army forces stormed the area and shot Sbeih, killing him instantly, and withholding his body.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that soldiers detained the ambulance crew and confiscated cell phones and IDs near Tayasir for more than two hours.

According to the Israeli army, a settler who participated in the attack was hit in the head by a stone thrown by Palestinian youths who were defending their village.

The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation said that the settler who killed the youth was a member of the army, and that he “was on leave and was present there,” indicating the involvement of the Israeli army and its provision of protection for settler attacks launched against the residents.

Earlier in the day, armed settlers assaulted two Palestinian children, brothers aged 11 and 13, in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and attempted to steal their livestock.

The local Wafa news agency reported that Israeli settlers kidnapped a 14-year-old boy in Qabalan and two youths in the nearby village of Einabus, south of Nablus, also on 8 April.

The head of the Qabalan village council said that a group of settlers stormed an area near the village and took the 14-year-old child to the Itamar settlement colony. In Einabus, local witnesses said that settlers, including a guard from the Yitzhar settlement, kidnapped two youths and took them to an area where they assaulted, beat them and stripped them of their clothes before releasing them.

On Monday, 6 April, Israeli settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, attacked the town of Silwad and the village of Yabrud, east of Ramallah. The mayor of Silwad, Raed Hamed, told the Wafa news agency that the settlers assaulted a man, his pregnant wife, and their son.

In Yabrud, settlers stole 15 sheep while Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters at the Palestinians in the village.

Also on 6 April, settlers assaulted and injured an elderly Palestinian man in the northeastern Jerusalem village of Mukhmas.

According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a Palestinian agency, settlers have carried out nearly 500 attacks during the month of March, including direct gunfire, arson, destruction of property, and attempts to establish settlement outposts.

Those attacks have resulted in the death of at least nine Palestinians, and extensive damage to homes, land and crops.

A 68-year-old woman, Sabriya Shamasneh, died after being brutally assaulted by Israeli soldiers when they raided her home in the village of Jayyous, near Qalqilya, on Tuesday morning.

Her husband, Walid, told reporters that the Israelis stormed the house and forced all the residents into a corner of the room while they searched the bedrooms.

At one point, Middle East Eye reported, “Sabriya attempted to move and called out to her son Hassan, fearing he had been arrested. The soldiers responded by shoving her violently with their rifles, knocking her to the ground and shouting at her to be quiet.”

Her head struck the wall, causing her to lose consciousness. Her husband panicked, shouting and pleading with the soldiers to help, but they refused.

After the soldiers left, Sabriya’s husband and son rushed her to a nearby hospital. A heavy presence of Israeli military vehicles had prevented an ambulance from reaching the scene, Middle East Eye noted.

“At the hospital, Sabriya was pronounced dead from the injuries she sustained during the raid, leaving her family in deep shock.”

Children’s rights group forced to close

After 35 years of documenting and reporting Israel’s crimes against children in Palestine, providing legal services to children in urgent need, and following years of systematic attacks by the Israeli government intended to undermine and criminalize their work, Defense for Children International-Palestine announced that it was being forced to cease operations this week.

The children’s rights group said that “for decades, DCIP has worked relentlessly to protect Palestinian children against all odds. Now, we look to others to take up the charge and fight for the future that Palestinian children deserve.”

One of the group’s last reports raised the alarm over the continuing imprisonment of more than 350 children, 51 percent of whom are being held in administrative detention – jailed without charge or trial.

This figure, Defense for Children International-Palestine says, is both the highest number and the highest proportion on record since DCIP began monitoring these numbers in 2008.

“These numbers come at a time when Palestinian children consistently report appalling and debilitating conditions within Israeli detention facilities, including being withheld from adequate food and water, being subjected to beatings and verbal harassment, lacking access to medical care, and being subjected to torture, including the use of solitary confinement,” DCIP stated.

“Lawyers representing Palestinian detainees continue to face increasing barriers to legal representation, including the cancellation of scheduled visits, severe limitations on visiting hours, prolonged delays extending for months, and bans on bringing in even basic case materials. Lawyers are also forbidden from passing on simple messages from families, and children who wish to pass along messages to their families through a lawyer have been beaten,” DCIP’s report says.

Attacks on Palestinian human rights organizations by both the Israelis and the US government have escalated in recent years.

The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah and Maureen Clare Murphy reported in 2021 on the Israeli government’s targeting of six prominent groups, including Defense for Children International-Palestine, following their cooperation with the International Criminal Court in its war crimes probe in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Writer Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the US policy fellow at the Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, noted that in February 2021, Defense for Children International–Palestine “reported that Israeli interrogators had raped a 15-year-old Palestinian boy while he was detained in Israel’s Moskobiyyeh prison in East Jerusalem. DCIP shared the allegation with US State Department officials, who reportedly raised it with Israeli authorities.”

However, “rather than investigate the abuse, Israeli forces raided and ransacked DCIP’s Ramallah offices and later designated the organization, along with five other Palestinian human rights groups, as ‘terrorist organizations,’” Kenney-Shawa writes.

Last year, Kenney-Shawa adds, the Trump administration “designated the Palestinian organizations under counterterrorism frameworks before advancing even further, sanctioning these leading human rights groups for engaging with the International Criminal Court. These measures move beyond targeting individual actors to undermining the very infrastructure of international accountability.”

Israeli massacres in Lebanon

Meanwhile, just hours after the US appeared to concede to Iran’s ceasefire conditions which would include Israel stopping its attacks on Lebanon, Israel launched more than 100 airstrikes on Beirut and the surrounding areas on Wednesday, killing nearly 300 people and wounding more than a thousand.

Israel killed two journalists during Israel’s Wednesday attacks on Lebanon. Ghada Dayekh of Sawt al-Farah radio was killed in her home in Sour (Tyre). 

 

Dayekh had worked at the station for decades and had been on air for 37 years.

Suzan Khalil, a reporter for Al-Manar TV, was also killed in Israeli attacks on Wednesday.

Highlighting reclamation

And finally, as we always do, we wanted to highlight people expressing joy, determination and reclamation across Palestine and around the world.

In Bethlehem, Christian Palestinians celebrated Palm Sunday on 5 April. This video was from the social media user @PalCatholic.

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a reporter for The Electronic Intifada.

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