R.I.P. AIS-Gaza

The remains of AIS-Gaza.

Our sister school in Gaza City was destroyed by an Israeli air strike last week. Read about it here. The eight-year old school had long been the target of militants within Gaza- having survived tank shells, qassam rockets, multiple militant attacks, artillery fire, sonic blasts, and kidnapping of foreign staff. One of my co-workers actually taught at the school until he was evacuated two years ago when Hamas besieged the institution in search of Westerners to brutalize. He actually had hopes of returning to Gaza one day.

Apparently, in its' final days, AIS-Gaza was used by Hamas terrorists as a launch site from which rockets were fired into Israel which led to its' demise. Perhaps through the school's destruction, the militants actually accomplished a long held aim with the help of the Israeli Air Force. As the first international school established in Gaza and a rare non-gender-segregated schools in the Strip, AIS-Gaza was one of the only opportunities for Palestinian children to receive an American education and exposure to a Western perspective.