Today (April 8) marks the 54th anniversary of the massacre of Bahr Al-Baqar School, where 80 civilian workers and children were killed in an Israeli air strike.
On Wednesday 8 April, at 9:20 am, Israeli Air Force F4 Phantom II fighter bombers attacked a single-floor school consisting of three classrooms in Bahr El-Baqar. The attack was part of Operation Priha's deep penetration strategy which aimed to relieve the conflict along the line of contact on the Suez Canal by striking deep targets and pressuring Nasser into a truce.
The school was hit by five bombs and two air-to-ground missiles, causing the respective parties to express starkly differing views concerning the motive of the attack and its appropriate designation.
While Egyptian and Arab sources regard the attack as a deliberate massacre and war crime intended to impose a ceasefire, Israeli and Western officials consider it to be a human error made on the Israeli side under the impression that the school was an Egyptian military installation.
When asked about the incident, Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister, said: "We have checked and re-checked and there was no mistake this time" and "Maybe the Egyptians put elementary students in a military base." Israeli envoy to the UN Yosef Tekoah also defended the bombing of Bahr El-Baqar.
Egyptian commander Abdelatim Ramadan said: "Actually, two targets were hit by the Israelis. The first target was a group of military bases about 30 km from the Suez Canal, which were targeted before, on the night of 18–19 December 1969. The second target was the Bahr El-Baqar primary school." However, the townspeople denied that there was any military presence in the town at the time of the bombing.
While the attack is considered a contributing factor to Israel's decision to suspend other deep strikes originally planned in Operation Priha, reports circulated in 2016 about prospective reimbursements for the historical killings being planned to further promote Egypt–Israel relations.
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