About 650,000 students are missing their second school year, an absence educators say will compound the trauma of war and could cause lasting developmental problems, The Washington Post reports
Gaza’s 650,000 school-age children already missed out on almost an entire year of education. Schools shut down after Israel launched its assault on the territory in retaliation for Hamas’ October 7 resistance campaign on southern Israel.
With languishing negotiations to halt fighting in the Israel-Hamas war, it’s not known when they can return to classes.
More than 90% of Gaza's school buildings have been damaged by Israeli bombardment, many of them run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians, according to the Global Education Cluster, a grouping of aid organizations led by Unicef and Save the Children.
About 85% are so wrecked they need major reconstruction — meaning it could take years before they are usable again. Gaza’s universities are also in ruins. Israel contends that Hamas fighters operate out of schools.
Some 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. They have crowded into the sprawling tent camps that lack water or sanitation systems, or UN and government schools now serving as shelters.
Kids have little choice but to help families Mo’men Qudeh said that before the war, his kids enjoyed school. “They were outstanding students. We raised them well,” he said.
Now he, his four sons, and his daughter live in a tent in a cemetery in Khan Younis after they had to flee their home in the eastern neighborhoods of the city. The kids get scared sleeping next to the graves of the dead, he said, but they have no alternative.
The continual flow of victims from airstrikes and shelling into the cemetery and the plentiful supply of destroyed buildings are their source for a tiny income.
Every day at 7am, local time, Qudeh and his children start picking through rubble. On a recent day of work, the young kids stumbled off the pile of wreckage with what they found. Qudeh’s 4-year-old son balanced a chunk of concrete under his arm, his blonde curly hair covered in dust. Outside their tent, they crouched on the ground and pounded the concrete into powder.
On a good day, after hours of work, they make about $4 selling the powder for use in constructing new graves.
Qudeh, who was injured in Israel’s 2014 war with Hamas, said he can’t do the heavy work alone.
“I cry for them when I see them with torn hands,” he said. At night, the exhausted children can’t sleep because of their aches and pain, he said. “They lie on their mattress like dead people,” he said.
Children are eager for a lost education
Aid groups have worked to set up educational alternatives — though the results have been limited as they wrestle with the flood of other needs.
Unicef and other aid agencies are running 175 temporary learning centers, most set up since late May, that have served some 30,000 students, with about 1,200 volunteer teachers, Ingram said.
They provide classes in literacy and numeracy as well as mental health and emotional development activities.
But she said they struggle to get supplies like pens, paper, and books because they are not considered lifesaving priorities as aid groups struggle to get enough food and medicine into Gaza.
In August, UNRWA began a “back to learning” program in 45 of its schools-turned-shelters that provide children activities like games, drama, arts, music, and sports.
The aim is to “give them some respite, a chance to reconnect with their friends and to simply be children,” spokesperson Juliette Touma said.
Education has long been a high priority among Palestinians. Before the war, Gaza had a high literacy rate — nearly 98%.
When she last visited Gaza in April, Ingram said children often told her they miss school, their friends, and their teachers. While describing how much he wanted to go back to class, one boy abruptly stopped in panic and asked her, “I can go back, can’t I?”
