A 9-year-old boy whose family sought refuge in America from overseas conflict found himself hiding in terror during a deadly shooting at his California school this week.
Odai Shanah, a student at an Islamic school housed within the Islamic Center of San Diego, described the frightening moments when gunfire broke out late Monday morning. His mother had moved to Southern California from Gaza two decades earlier, while his father came from Jordan in 2015.
Speaking hours after the attack, the young boy remembered hearing multiple gunshots from beyond the building’s walls. Teachers quickly moved him and his fellow students into a closet, where they huddled together in fear as another 12 to 16 shots echoed outside.
“My legs were shaking and my hands and my head were like hurting a lot. I felt like a rock,” Shanah explained.
When the gunfire stopped, police SWAT officers called out from outside their classroom. “‘OK, open up,’ then they opened the door,” the child recalled.
As officers led them from the building, the experience became even more traumatic. “We saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and yeah, bad stuff,” Shanah said, acknowledging he was describing the bodies of victims.
During the evacuation, the boy watched police break down doors to other classrooms as SWAT teams methodically searched the facility room by room. “They told us to put our hands up and form a big line,” he said, noting that younger children formed a separate evacuation line.
Authorities reported that two teenage suspects fatally shot three men connected to the Islamic Center, including a security guard who officials credit with preventing additional casualties. The attackers later took their own lives several blocks from the scene.
Law enforcement confirmed that the gunmen never breached the mosque complex itself. All students from the school, called the Bright Horizon Academy, were safely accounted for following the incident.
Both of Shanah’s parents authorized their U.S.-born son, who is related to a news organization employee, to share his account of the traumatic event.
The violence particularly shocked Shanah’s mother, who had fled Gaza in 2006 during extended fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in that coastal region, seeking safety in America.
