Approximately 300,000 UNRWA students have been cut off from formal education since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023.
After two years of relentless Israeli war and the devastation that destroyed the homes, hospitals and schools that are the basis of daily life in the Palestinian enclave, classrooms in Gaza are slowly coming back to life.
Four weeks after the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is in the process of reopening schools across the Gaza Strip, amid continued Israeli shelling and severe restrictions on aid flows.
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More than 300,000 UNRWA students have been without formal education since October 2023, and fighting has left 97 percent of the agency’s buildings damaged or destroyed.
Once an educational hub, it now also serves as a shelter for hundreds of displaced families.
Reporting from the central city of Deir El Bala, Al Jazeera’s Tarek Abu Azizm found families sharing classrooms with children struggling to reclaim their futures.
Inam al-Maghari, one of the Palestinian students who has resumed classes, spoke to Al Jazeera about the damage Israel’s war in Gaza has done to education.
“I used to study, but I was away from school for two years. I didn’t finish my second and third years, and now I’m in my fourth year and I feel like I don’t know anything,” Al Magali said.
“Today we brought mattresses instead of desks to sit and study,” she added.
UNRWA hopes to expand its education services in the coming weeks, said Enas Hamdan, head of UNRWA’s communications office.
“UNRWA is working to provide face-to-face education to more than 62,000 students in the Gaza Strip through temporary safe learning spaces,” Hamdan said.
“We are working to expand these efforts to 67 displaced schools across the Strip. Additionally, we continue to provide online learning to 300,000 students in Gaza.”
Displaced Palestinian Umm Mahmoud explained how she and her family vacate their room three times a week so students can study.
“Education is extremely important, so we are keeping classrooms open to give children the opportunity to learn,” Umm Mahmoud said. “We are prioritizing learning and hope that the situation will improve and the quality of education will improve.”
The war in Gaza has taken its toll on children, with psychologists warning that more than 80% of children are showing symptoms of severe trauma.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimates that more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured in the Gaza Strip during the fighting.
Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “One million children bear the scars of fear, loss and grief, having endured daily terror during their childhood in some of the world’s most dangerous places.”
