In Gaza, schools are no longer just walls and doors, but have become a distant dream that children chase every day amid the rubble and international silence. Since 7 October 2023, every new day added to the lives of children has been filled with fear and waiting, as they watch the sky before they watch their books. It is all thanks to Israel, which continues to carry out both a genocide and educide in the Strip.
Israel’s continuing educide in Gaza
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced that the number of students killed in Gaza has reached 18,346, with another 27,884 injured. These children, who were supposed to carry their notebooks and backpacks and greet the school day with a smile, have now become witnesses to death and destruction, their educational dreams suspended amid the rubble.
Teachers have not been spared from this violence; 970 teachers and administrators have been killed and 4,533 others injured, while 130 university professors and researchers have been directly assassinated. Those who were once a source of knowledge and hope have become statistics in the war, leaving thousands of students without guidance or mentorship.
The educational infrastructure in Gaza was catastrophically damaged: 160 public schools and 63 university buildings were completely destroyed, while 118 public schools and 93 UNRWA schools were bombed and vandalized. Twenty-five schools have been completely wiped off the educational map, along with their students and teachers, leaving a vast area of education in ruins and the dreams of thousands of children suspended amid the rubble and the roar of aircraft.
Behind the figures
The stories behind these numbers are more painful than the statistics: children who lost their friends, books, and teachers, and whose childhoods became prisoners of fear. They used to dream of new notebooks and classrooms, and today they sit in displacement tents trying to remember what school looked like, carrying a part of the world’s patience in their little hearts.
Today, Gaza is not just a city under bombardment, but a large school teaching its children the meaning of waiting and patience, telling the world that education is no longer just a right, but a whole life, and a dream that everyone needs to wake up to save before it disappears forever.
Featured image via the Canary
