On the morning of Wednesday, April 8, 1970, inside a modest, two-room schoolhouse in the village of Al-Salhiya, Sharqia Governorate, children in Egypt were embarking on another day of lessons. Just 110 kilometres from Zagazig, Bahr Al-Baqar Primary School was a place of simple safety, where young minds grappled with the alphabet. But this tranquility was shattered when Israeli Phantom jets appeared in the sky above.
What began as an ordinary school day swiftly descended into a documented crime against humanity. Without warning, the Israeli aircraft unleashed five bombs and two missiles upon the Bahr Al-Baqar school, reducing the building to rubble in a matter of moments. Thirty children perished, and over fifty more were wounded or permanently disfigured – a grim testament to the tragedy that unfolded that day.
In the aftermath, Tel Aviv claimed its jets had targeted only military installations during the raid on Egyptian territory. Yet this explanation rang hollow, especially as the attack came less than two months after the bombing of the Abu Zaabal factory, a civilian site where 89 workers were killed.
At Bahr Al-Baqar, there was no military objective, no strategic asset – only a humble building holding the aspirations of children who knew nothing of war or politics. Their schoolbags contained pencils and notebooks, not weapons or threats.
The massacre occurred at the height of the War of Attrition, a period when Egypt was striving to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula following the 1967 defeat. Israel’s intent, it seemed, was to deliver a brutal message to the Egyptian state: retreat, or face further suffering. But the attack backfired. Instead of submission, it ignited a wave of public outrage and galvanised national unity behind the Egyptian army in its struggle to restore dignity.
Despite widespread international condemnation from numerous countries, Israel has never been held accountable for the Bahr Al-Baqar massacre. No independent investigation was ever launched by an international body. This silence stands as a stark reminder of global complicity, and the impunity that often cloaks the crimes committed under occupation.
The Bahr Al-Baqar massacre has not been forgotten in Egypt. It is deeply etched into the national memory and culture. Renowned singer Abdel Halim Hafez immortalised the tragedy in his famous song, “The lesson is over, they packed up the notebooks”—lyrics penned by the poet Salah Jahin—broadcasting the cry of innocent children who left behind only their books and small bags.
The ruined school has been transformed into a symbolic, national shrine – a permanent image in the collective consciousness, reminding generations that the enemy makes no distinction between soldier and child, and that the real war is against identity and life itself.
Today, more than five decades later, the Bahr Al-Baqar massacre remains an open wound in Egypt’s heart. It serves as a constant reminder that war is not confined to battlefields; it can begin within the walls of a school. The blood of those children, even when dried, still cries out for a justice denied, and for an accountability that is long overdue.
The anniversary of this horrific event serves as a somber reminder to Egyptians that Israel was—and, according to some, will always remain—an eternal enemy to Egypt and its people.
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