No Back to School in Gaza — for the Third Year in a Row

As children across the world begin the new academic year, Gaza’s students are being denied their right to education for a third year running.

As children across the world prepare themselves for starting a new school season, with new uniforms, lunchboxes, bags, Gaza’s students are being denied their right to education for a third year running. There is no ‘back to school’ for the children of the Gaza Strip. They are trapped. Children here are unable to start the school journey, not by choice, but by what has seemed to be an endless war and the cycle of denial. The declaration of a ceasefire in recent days is not going to change this in any meaningful way.

Since the beginning of this war, 95% of schools and all colleges and universities have been either destroyed or turning into shelters to the displaced families. According to UN, more than 600,000 children have no access to education systems. Over 80% of those killed by the Israelis are women and children, with nearly 70,000 people confirmed dead. We simply do not know how many thousands of school age children have been killed are are under the rubble.

A boy sitting in the rubble of a destroyed UNRWA school in Nuseirat, Middle Areas. © 2024 UNRWA Photo

Even if schools are still standing - which is very rare - they are not a conducive environment for students to learn. Classrooms are turning into “ homes” for displaced families. Campuses are full of makeshift tents and other needs of the displaced.

Education in this horrible environment feels impossible.

A Whole Generation Does Not Know What School Means

Many children are growing older in the middle of this war, and they still do not know or fathom what school even means. They don’t know what it feels like to sit in a classroom, to learn from a teacher, to have a day filled with activities instead of suffering. Instead of playing on the school campus, they stand in long lines just to get clean water. They don’t even know which grade they should be in.

For me, when I look at my little brother Yamen — who has grown two years older during this war — I feel like crying. I want to protect him from what Israel is doing to him, and all the children here. He is only five years old, and he still does not know what kindergarten is. He doesn’t understand what school is supposed to be.

It is heartbreaking to watch a whole generation grow up inside a shelter, and feel completely helpless to stop it. Yamen should be learning to write his name, to paint, to make friends. But instead of enjoying those beautiful, simple things, he spends his days chasing drones with confusion, talking about bombs and nightmares, not stories or friends.

So many children here are like Yamen. They have no idea what education feels like. No classrooms. No books. No teachers.

This war has cost us more than homes and buildings. It has stolen childhoods, erased futures, and buried dreams. The cost is far greater than anyone can imagine.

A Deliberate Denial

This war has not only deprived children from education, it goes beyond deeper than that. The Israelis have deliberately deprived our society from having a new generation of educated citizens. There has been a systematic effort to silence, weaken and abuse our people and to turn Gaza into an illiterate society.

Gaza has long had one of the highest rates of educated people in the Arab world, but now it faces the highest number of denied students from schools and universities. The Israel actions have deliberately denied students access to learning and education. Without schools and improved generation rates Gaza will face many obstacles, and this is how Israel wants us to be.

What can a future be when our children are being displaced rather than educated for the third year in a row? In which country does this happen? Nowhere. Only here. Only in Gaza.

UNRWA school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat, Middle Areas, after it was hit. © 2024 UNRWA Photo2

A Frozen Time for a Different Generation

This catastrophe has not only affected Gaza’s children — it has also stolen the future of high school students. Their final exams, known as Tawjihi, have been suspended since 2023, leaving their futures frozen in time. These students are trapped in an uncertain educational journey. In Gaza, Tawjihi is considered the most crucial and decisive stage of learning before university.

Two generations of high school students are living with anxiety and confusion as to their academic journey and future. Almost 40,000 students were deprived of their high school exams.

The students are supposed to enter college and experience university life, make new friends, and build dreams. But the truth is that they are still stuck waiting to complete a high school degree for over two years and they are left waiting.

Life goes on, and as the early days of a ceasefire at least provide some hope, they are still waiting for the next step toward their studies. However, if they are lucky and have the possibility of applying for the exams and pass the year, they will continue to face a host of difficulties and struggle. Internet access is the simplest hurdle, and displacement is the biggest one.

But the tragedy does not end with children or high school students. University students in Gaza have also witnessed their future stolen. I am one of the students, my friends too. We have lost over a year of our bachelor program, not because we failed, but because we have experienced the worst conditions in the world. A war.

The damage at the Islamic University of Gaza after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike. Sipa via AP Images

“I have never imagined my university journey would turn into suffering instead of joy,” my best friend Huda told me.

Only the lucky ones, those who can still access an internet connection and a calm corner to focus and study are able to continue their studies. But they are very few in number, as most of us living among unimaginable situations. There is no guarantee of electricity. There are no study materials, no stable internet connection. Online studies that continued during have been no real compensation for all of the other opportunities that have been taken from us.

A lucky few have been prepped for their graduation, others have waited for a scholarship to open. Now everything is sheltered. Our university — the Islamic University of Gaza - is completely destroyed, and most of its academic staff have been killed amid the ongoing war. Professors, researchers, and other staff are either killed or suffering from this tragic war.

This is the third year with no back to school. But the real question is: how many more years will we wait to return to school? To life?

As students across the world return to their classrooms, please do not forget Gaza’s students who are waiting, not just to study, but to live.