The Gaza Record, October 17
A date when hundreds died at a hospital and schools in Gaza
By Dominick Skinner | 17 October 2025
We’ve seen so many atrocities in Gaza committed by Israel that they fade from memory. The Gaza Record is our attempt to bring these events under a fresh light as we look back each day on the crimes committed on that date. October 17 is remembered as a day when hospitals and schools, the last places left to hide, became graves for those looking to hide.
On October 17, 2023, hundreds of civilians gathered at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. The hospital had become a refuge for families who believed that even in war, hospitals are protected under international law. That illusion ended just after nightfall, when an explosion tore through the hospital courtyard, the blast lit up the sky and turned a place of healing into an open-air morgue. The number of dead varies depending on who is asked, with lower estimates saying that around 300 had been killed, while the Gaza Ministry of Health confirmed more than 470 dead and over 300 injured. Many of the victims were children while doctors who survived said they were performing surgeries on the ground by phone light when the explosion hit.
The scene was beyond words, some people burned alongside the cars in the parking lot. Bodies were scattered across the hospital garden, parents searched for their children with flashlights. Ambulances tried to reach the site through blocked streets as the bombs continued, and footage aired by Al Jazeera Arabic showed one of the most haunting moments of the war, the night the world watched a hospital burn and still could not decide who to blame.
Every Arabic outlet from Al Jazeera to Al-Arabiya carried witness accounts from doctors and patients who had taken shelter there. The story was consistent: the blast came from the air. Israel immediately denied responsibility, first blaming misfired rockets from Gaza, then changing the story again. But the strike came at a time when Israel had already cut Gaza’s fuel, power, water, and aid. The population had nowhere to run and nowhere left to treat the wounded. It was the ninth straight day of bombing, and the hospitals that weren’t hit were already overflowing.
That night became a symbol, not just of indiscriminate bombing, but of the total collapse of protection for civilians. International law promises that medical facilities are safe zones. October 17 proved that in Gaza, even those promises burn.
By October 17, 2024, the pattern had become the routine language of genocide. The Abu Hussein School in Jabalia, run by UNRWA, was hit by an Israeli strike while sheltering displaced families, at least twenty-eight people were killed, and more than 160 were wounded, the majority of them women and children. Arabic media described it as “the massacre of the day,” as these types of massacres had become the daily standard for Israel in Gaza. Civil defense workers were seen carrying body parts out of the classrooms and survivors said they had moved to the school after fleeing the south, believing UN shelters would be respected.
Israel claimed the school contained a command center. No evidence was ever shown, this same justification has been used for every hospital, every school, every bakery, every convoy hit. The UN’s agencies said the entire humanitarian system had broken down, and that no place was safe.
This was also the period when famine had fully taken hold, Israel’s blockade on food, fuel, and medicine had turned starvation into a weapon of war. Even the United States, which armed and financed Israel’s campaign, began issuing public statements calling for restraint, though its weapons shipments continued without pause.
October 17, 2023, was the day the world saw what Gaza’s people had been saying for years, that hospitals were not safe, that aid was a target, that nowhere was outside the crosshairs. October 17, 2024, was the day the world stopped pretending to be surprised.
Every year, the date returns. Every year, Israel adds another entry to the list. The rhythm of genocide never changes. Promise safety. Bomb a shelter. Deny responsibility.
The world may want to forget, but Gaza cannot forget.
And for the rest of us, The Gaza Record remembers.