Gaza prepares for return to school amid destruction and without books: ‘The Strip resists death through education’

Fatigue shows on Israa Yasin’s face as she hand-washes the clothes of her four children in a large plastic basin inside an old tent in Al Mawasi, in southern Gaza. The youngest, six-year-old Abdul Rahman, keeps asking angrily, “Where are my school clothes?” The new term will begin on September 19, but the little boy will not be going to school. “My children were very excited,” Yasin says, holding back tears, “especially the youngest, who is about to start school for the first time in his life. He wants new clothes and shoes, notebooks and pens; things he has heard his older siblings say they buy every year. But this year it’s impossible.” In Gaza, 658,000 children like Abdul have been denied an education because of the devastation and poverty left by the attacks and the Israeli blockade, UNICEF says.

The children’s father has been unemployed since the war began, almost three years ago, and the family’s finances are at breaking point. In a matter of days his wife will enter her ninth month of pregnancy and will need costly items for the delivery that they cannot afford. He says they face two equally devastating dilemmas. “Do we buy school clothes or what the new baby needs? It’s a question I cannot answer, because I can’t afford either,” he says.

Abdul climbs into his mother’s lap and shows her videos on his phone of his siblings getting ready for school before the war. He has also found videos posted by students in other Arab countries buying school supplies. Disappointment is clear on his face and his three older brothers try to comfort him. They say that if it were up to them, they would do everything possible to buy at least some of what he wants.

“God willing, everything will work out somehow,” the mother says, trying to reassure them. Her husband, she says, has tried to contact relief committees to obtain school supplies. He has been given promises that never materialized. Even so, the couple has not lost hope of receiving something.

Omar Dahlan, a professor at Al Aqsa University in Gaza who specializes in education in crisis and emergency situations, is not optimistic about the state of teaching for the new school year. “Education in Gaza is between life and death,” he says. “Everyone is trying not to lose hope, but this cannot last much longer without real means of resuscitation and recovery.”

Gaza resists death through education

Omar Dahlan, professor at Al Aqsa University

The Palestinian enclave has gone from having one of the region’s best education systems to being in critical condition. Before October 7, 2023, only 2% of the population over the age of 15 in the Strip was illiterate: one of the lowest rates in the Arab world.

But now 60% of school-age boys and girls do not have access to in-person classes and almost 92% of school buildings are totally or partially destroyed, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

A report from the Palestinian Ministry of Education covering the period 2023–2026 shows that school attendance has fallen from 200 school days a year to 60, and that weekly class hours have dropped from 30 to 12. In practice, two-thirds of the school year have disappeared from students’ lives. “As a result, one year of war currently has less than 30% of the cognitive value of a normal academic year,” the document stresses.

Although humanitarian aid tries to serve Gaza’s children, funding is insufficient. In its most recent report, UNICEF says $114 million is needed to cover education needs. But the funding gap is 50%.

Some 350,000 students are expected to enroll this year, Ahmed al-Najjar, director general of public and international relations at the Ministry of Education, explains. That is 30% more than in 2025, when 270,000 registered. Al-Najjar says this is an important sign of Gaza residents’ determination to claim their right to education despite the devastating outlook.

“Gaza resists death through education,” Professor Dahlan says, “and fights, despite having almost nothing, to return to in-person teaching, however difficult that may be. These are serious efforts, but they need the support of the world and of people who want the war to end, and to allow what education needs to function to arrive.”

Classrooms made of tarpaulins

At Al Hadara school, erected a year ago in Al Mawasi using wooden supports and huge plastic tarps, principal Alaa al-Astal supervises the cleaning and organization of the classrooms and the small yard in front of them. They are preparing the facilities to reopen the center and welcome the more than 2,200 students who have registered. The school, built thanks to donations from families and the community, has 10 classrooms, four bathrooms, an administration room, a counseling room, a small storeroom and a kitchen. Teachers, supervisors and school psychologists spend long periods debating the best way to follow emergency plans to address learning loss.

Al-Astal insists that staff draw up precise implementation plans to overcome obstacles and improve class quality with the few resources available.

However, she faces an endless list of logistical needs that she has no way of meeting. “The classrooms are small and scarce, with damaged and inadequate wooden desks and chairs,” the principal explains. “Classes are held in two shifts: three days for boys and three days for girls, with three sessions a day of three hours each. Around 50 teachers and staff handle all operations in a space of less than 1,000 square meters.”

“In short,” Al-Astal says, “what is available is almost nothing like a conventional school. Most pupils sit and write on the floor.”

The Ministry of Education’s report, published in May, warns that the damage goes beyond lost classes. “This crisis manifests clearly in the early primary grades, where many children arrive at school without the prerequisite skills needed for learning,” the report explains. It adds: “A child who has not practiced reading and writing in a stable school environment gradually loses the ability to read common words, understand simple sentences, and produce their first written expressions.”

A system that adapts to war

Al-Najjar acknowledges that “a large number of children still lack access to in-person classes due to the exceptional circumstances that persist, limited capacity, and the absence of safe learning spaces in many areas.”

Between October 7, 2023 and February 17, 2026, more than 20,000 students from schools, institutes, and universities and about 1,000 education-sector employees were killed, according to ministry data.

It is estimated that there are currently around 230 different sites in the Strip still used for teaching: from a few schools that survived the bombings and others that have been partially repaired to tents.

“Not all of these locations are traditional schools in the sense that was understood before the war, given the scale of destruction suffered by the education sector,” Al-Najjar says. “Therefore, the Ministry is working under a concept of flexible education, which combines usable schools, temporary learning centers, tents designated for teaching, and virtual classes.”

He also details that desks, chairs, blackboards, teaching materials, pens, notebooks, and textbooks are lacking.

For that reason, he says, they make “maximum” use of what is available. “We direct aid to the most in-need places, working with partners, especially UNICEF,” he says. “The challenge is not only to rebuild schools,” he adds, “but to rebuild an entire education system capable of accommodating students and staff.”

The Ministry is working under a concept of flexible education, which combines usable schools, temporary learning centers, tents designated for teaching, and virtual classes

Ahmed al-Najjar, director general of public and international relations at the Ministry of Education

To address gaps in education, he adds, strategies such as the ministry’s Accelerated Learning Program (ALP), focused on grades two through nine, have been promoted. But now the goal is to go further. “The idea is to move from recovering lost classes to identifying the basic skills a student has lost and working intensively and systematically to recover them,” he explains. The ministry, he adds, has collaborated with UNICEF to train principals and teachers on implementing the program and assessing students.

Professor Dahlan believes the ministry’s program, adopted this year, does not suit Gaza’s conditions because it assumes knowledge loss has been equal among all students. “Accelerated learning that merges two years’ competencies into one imposes an additional cognitive load on teachers and students without a real benefit,” he says. “What should be applied instead is an accurate diagnosis of students using appropriate assessment and recovery tools, and training teachers in a differentiated education system.”

For now, Dahlan continues training education graduates and teachers in displacement areas through several specialized civil organizations, but he describes all those efforts to recover lost learning as, at best, “an attempt to survive.” “It is to keep education alive, nothing more,” he laments.

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