With the start of the new school year, streets around the world are filled with familiar scenes: children carrying their colorful school bags, running toward their classrooms with smiles full of hope and dreams. In Europe, the metro is crowded with morning commuters, and in Arab countries, the streets sparkle with students in their uniforms, as if every step is a promise of a better future. But in Gaza, reality tells a different story, where the sounds of hunger and fear intertwine with the echoes of lost education – and dreams.
In Gaza, there are no cheerful queues in front of schools, no new notebooks opening the doors to knowledge, and no backpacks carrying childhood dreams. Instead, children stand in long lines in front of aid distribution centers, searching for a morsel of food or a drop of water, while schools that were once beacons of learning have been reduced to rubble or crowded shelters for displaced persons.
Reports from Save the Children indicate that more than 625,000 students and teachers have been deprived of education due to Israel’s destruction of infrastructure, while approximately 87.7% of school buildings have been destroyed or partially damaged, leaving school desks a distant memory in children’s minds and their notebooks telling the story of a postponed dream.
Famine threatens children
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels, with the United Nations officially declaring famine in large parts of the Strip, threatening the lives of more than 640,000 people, including many children who have never known peace. According to the World Health Organization, about 12,000 children under the age of five suffer from severe malnutrition, as if their small bodies tell the silent story of the siege and hunger that engulfs their lives.
While children around the world return to school, carrying their notebooks and dreams, the children of Gaza begin another year of suffering. In European countries, education is considered a guaranteed right, and governments allocate huge budgets to ensure quality education.
In Gaza, however, education has become an elusive dream, and those who have survived famine are trying to stay alive rather than pursue knowledge, as if every day is a test of survival rather than an opportunity to learn.
The difference between going back to school in the rest of the world and in Gaza is not just books and pens, but the fundamental right to survive and live with dignity.
Saving the children of Gaza requires urgent action by the international community to provide food, ensure a safe educational environment, and rebuild schools and educational infrastructure, so that this generation can regain its stolen childhood and learn that, despite everything, dreams can grow again.
Tragic figures over Gaza education
The Ministry of Education in Gaza announced that 11,600 school-age students have been killed during the Israeli occupation’s war of extermination on Gaza since 7 October 2023.
The ministry said in a press statement that Israel deliberately targeted and destroyed educational facilities throughout the war, despite their use as shelters for displaced people who had been forced from their homes.
The ministry added that the war has prevented 650,000 students from attending school for the third consecutive academic year, in addition to depriving about 100,000 students of higher education institutions and 35,000 children in kindergarten.
The ministry noted in its statement that the occupation completely or partially destroyed 462 schools and universities during the first year of the war, equivalent to 93% of school buildings in Gaza.
According to the ministerial statement, the occupation directly assassinated 130 scientists, university professors, and researchers, while 750 teachers working in the education sector were martyred.
Featured image via the Canary
