How the war in Gaza is depriving children of their right to an education

UN experts expressed concern about what they view as the systematic destruction of Gaza’s education system, which likely constitutes a grave violation of the rights of children prohibited under international humanitarian law. (AFP)
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Updated 03 September 2024
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How the war in Gaza is depriving children of their right to an education

  • Children in Gaza face the grim prospect of another year without schooling — unless a ceasefire is agreed soon
  • Almost 88 percent of Gaza’s schools have been damaged or destroyed under Israel’s relentless bombardment

LONDON: As schoolchildren around the globe prepare their backpacks for the new academic year, more than half a million pupils in Palestine’s embattled Gaza Strip face a second year in a row without an education.

Over the past year, some 625,000 children in Gaza have been deprived of schooling, according to the UN children’s fund, UNICEF. With little prospect of a permanent ceasefire, they are unlikely to return to schools this month.




August alone saw attacks on eight schools in Gaza City, killing more than 179 Palestinians and causing significant damage. (AFP)

Amal, whose name has been changed at her request, has been teaching her two children, aged 7 and 10, in their temporary shelter in Rafah. However, she says repeated exposure to traumatic events and the lack of stability have disrupted their learning.

“How can a child remember lines of poetry after a night of bombardment, screams and trembling?” Amal told Arab News. “Even our adult brains are faltering amid this chaos. How can a child learn and grow with an empty stomach and when their friends are likely to die any minute?”

The Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which saw more than 1,100 killed and 250 taken hostage, triggered the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has killed at least 40,700 people, 16,500 of them children, according to local health authorities.

Thousands more Gazan children remain missing, presumed buried under the rubble, while more than 12,000 have been injured — at least 1,000 of them having undergone leg amputations.

Those who have survived have been left without a safe place to learn or the means to return to education. The Global Education Cluster, co-led by UNICEF and Save the Children, estimates that as of March 30, some 87.7 percent of school facilities in Gaza had been destroyed.




Over the past year, some 625,000 children in Gaza have been deprived of schooling. (AFP)

According to the cluster, which made a damage assessment using satellite imagery, direct Israeli strikes have severely damaged 212 of the enclave’s schools and caused moderate to minor damage to a further 282.

Some 70 percent of the schools operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency have also suffered damage. However, since October, around 95 percent of these schools have been transformed into shelters for displaced households.

Attacks on schools are deemed a grave violation of children’s rights and are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Israeli authorities have insisted they do not target civilians or civilian infrastructure, instead accusing Hamas of using schools and hospitals as command centers from which to launch attacks and using their occupants as human shields.

In August, the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services concluded that nine UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, while the records of 10 others are still being reviewed.

UNRWA employs 32,000 people across its area of operations — 13,000 of them in Gaza. The UN launched the investigation after Israel said in January that 12 UNRWA staff had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack. Seven more cases were brought to the UN’s attention in March and April.




Israeli strikes have severely damaged 212 of the enclave’s schools and caused moderate to minor damage to a further 282. (AFP)

The allegations against UNRWA led several major donor nations, including the US, to suspend funding for the agency, undermining relief efforts not only in Gaza and the West Bank but throughout the Middle East region where Palestinians hold refugee status.

In April, UN experts led by Farida Shaheed, the special rapporteur on the right to education, expressed concern about what appeared to be the systematic destruction of Gaza’s education system — already weakened by Israel’s 17-year embargo on the enclave.

“With more than 80 percent of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide,’” the experts said in a joint statement.

Scholasticide involves the organized destruction of the educational infrastructure and the killing of students, teachers and staff.

Gaza’s Ministry of Education said in August that at least 500 teachers had been killed in the hostilities, while more than 3,000 were injured.




Thousands more Gazan children remain missing, presumed buried under the rubble, while more than 12,000 have been injured. (AFP)

The UN experts said they believe the Israeli attacks on Gaza’s schools “are not isolated incidents” but part of “a systematic pattern of violence aimed at dismantling the very foundation of Palestinian society.”

August alone saw attacks on eight schools in Gaza City, killing more than 179 Palestinians and causing significant damage.

The deadliest of these strikes was on Al-Tabin School in Gaza City on Aug. 10. CNN confirmed that a US-manufactured GBU-39 small-diameter bomb was used in the attack, killing more than 100 of the roughly 2,400 Palestinian refugees sheltering there.

In a post condemning the attack on the social media platform X, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said: “Schools, UN facilities and civilian infrastructure are not a target.”

Calling for an immediate ceasefire, he wrote on the day of the attack: “Parties to the conflict must not use schools and other civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes.




At least 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million-strong population have been displaced. (AFP)

“It’s time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end. We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity.”

To provide children with a shred of normality and respite from the daily horrors of the conflict, UNICEF and its partners in the Palestinian enclave have set up 48 learning tents in Khan Younis, the Middle Area, Gaza City and North Gaza.

The temporary spaces provided informal learning activities and mental health support to some 15,000 school-age children in July.

INNUMBERS

• 625,000 Children in Gaza deprived of an education since October 2023.

• 87.7% Schools damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes across Gaza.

(Source: UNICEF, Global Education Cluster)

But despite the efforts of humanitarian organizations to offer temporary learning opportunities for Gaza’s children, the absence of a permanent ceasefire, repeated displacement, decimated infrastructure, and extremely limited access to basic necessities such as food, clean drinking water, and healthcare have hindered their ability to develop normally.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, underlined in June that more than 8,000 children in the embattled enclave have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition.

The WHO chief warned that “a significant proportion of Gaza’s population is now facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”




The international community has accused the Israeli government of using the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. (AFP)

More than 34 people, at least 28 of them children, have already died from severe malnutrition, Gaza’s health authority reported in late June.

The international community has accused the Israeli government of using the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.

In May, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of deliberately starving civilians.

The Israeli government has repeatedly denied the accusations. However, high-ranking officials, including Gallant himself, publicly stated their intention to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel at the outset of the conflict last year.

At least 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million-strong population have been displaced — many of them multiple times — as the Israeli military has evacuated Palestinian families from one “safe zone” to another. In the process, children have been deprived of the stability required for learning.




Gaza’s Ministry of Education said in August that at least 500 teachers had been killed in the hostilities, while more than 3,000 were injured. (AFP)

Save the Children warned in April that “when children are out of school for a long period, their learning does not just stop but is also likely to regress. We know from previous crises that the longer children are out of school, the greater the risk that they do not return.

“This risks their prospects in the longer-term, including their income, and their mental and physical health, while they may also be at greater risk from violence and abuse.”

 


Dramatic footage shows moment oil tanker struck by Houthi drone

Updated 12 sec ago
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Dramatic footage shows moment oil tanker struck by Houthi drone

  • Group releases video of explosion engulfing Cordelia Moon as it passed through Red Sea
  • Houthis have threatened to ‘escalate military operations’ after Israeli air raids last week

LONDON: Footage has been released of an oil tanker being struck by a Houthi drone vessel in the Red Sea.

The group published a video appearing to show the unmanned boat colliding with the Panama-flagged Cordelia Moon on Tuesday.

In the footage, a large explosion is seen on the vessel’s port side, followed by a plume of smoke engulfing the tanker. Its crew reported no major injuries and that all aboard are safe.

The attack reportedly occurred about 70 miles (110 km) off the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, which is controlled by the militia.

The Houthis later claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said involved eight ballistic and winged missiles, a drone and an unmanned boat.

The US Navy said that the captain of a nearby vessel reported seeing four “splashes” in the water around the Cordelia Moon, believed to have been caused by missiles launched at the tanker missing their target.

Though the Houthis described the Cordelia Moon as a British ship, it is managed by an Indian company called Margao Marine Solutions.

Meanwhile, British security firm Amber reported that a second vessel, sailing under the Liberian flag, was struck by a missile about 97 nautical miles northwest of Hodeidah later that day as it traveled toward the Suez Canal. Its crew also reported no major injuries and that all aboard are safe.

The two attacks represent a return to the targeting of commercial shipping by the Houthis after a brief hiatus in operations.

The group began attacking vessels in the region following Israel’s invasion of Gaza last year.

The Houthis have also launched drone and missile attacks against Israel since the start of hostilities, and on Monday threatened to “escalate military operations” after shooting down a US military drone as it flew over Yemen. That incident followed a series of Israeli air raids over Houthi-occupied Yemen last week, which hit a number of military and oil installations.


Three Lebanese hospitals suspend services amid Israeli bombing: statements

Updated 29 min 57 sec ago
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Three Lebanese hospitals suspend services amid Israeli bombing: statements

  • Sainte Therese Hospital near Beirut’s southern suburbs reported “huge damage” to the building

BEIRUT: Three hospitals in Lebanon including one on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs announced Friday the suspension of work, amid ongoing Israeli bombardment.
In statements carried by the official National News Agency, Sainte Therese Hospital near Beirut’s southern suburbs reported “huge damage” to the building on Thursday due to Israeli bombardment in the vicinity and the subsequent “halt of hospital services,” while two hospitals in the country’s south also said services had stopped.


Israeli military says it has killed around 250 Hezbollah fighters in ground operation

Updated 40 min 53 sec ago
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Israeli military says it has killed around 250 Hezbollah fighters in ground operation

  • The military was still assessing the damage caused by airstrikes in southern Beirut

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military estimates it has killed around 250 Hezbollah fighters, including a number of battalion and company commanders, since the start of its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this week, a military spokesperson said on Friday.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the military was still assessing the damage caused by airstrikes in southern Beirut on Thursday night, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.


Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire

Updated 47 min 43 sec ago
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Iran FM says backs efforts for simultaneous Gaza-Lebanon ceasefire

  • “We support the efforts for a ceasefire,” Iran’s FM Abbas Araghchi said

BEIRUT: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday said his country backed efforts for a simultaneous ceasefire with Israel in both the Palestinian territory of Gaza and Lebanon.
“We support the efforts for a ceasefire, provided that first, the rights of the Lebanese people are respected and it is accepted by the (Hezbollah) resistance, and second, that it comes simultaneously with a ceasefire in Gaza,” he said during a visit to Beirut.


Hunted yet unrepentant: Yahya Sinwar remains committed to Israel’s destruction

Updated 04 October 2024
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Hunted yet unrepentant: Yahya Sinwar remains committed to Israel’s destruction

  • For Sinwar, 62, armed struggle remains the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation
  • Now the conflict has spread to Lebanon, with Israel heavily degrading Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, including killing most of its leadership

GAZA STRIP: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is unrepentant about the Oct. 7 attacks a year ago, people in contact with him say, despite unleashing an Israeli invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, laid waste to his Gaza homeland and rained destruction on ally Hezbollah.
For Sinwar, 62, architect of the Hamas cross-border raids that became the deadliest day in Israel’s history, armed struggle remains the only way to force the creation of a Palestinian nation, four Palestinian officials and two sources from governments in the Middle East said.
The Oct. 7 attacks killed 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and captured 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded by launching a massive offensive, killing 41,600 people and displacing 1.9 million, according to Palestinian health authorities and UN figures.
Now the conflict has spread to Lebanon, with Israel heavily degrading Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, including killing most of its leadership. Hamas patron Tehran is at risk of being pulled into open war with Israel.
Sinwar has drawn Iran and its entire “Axis of Resistance” — comprising Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi militias — into conflict with Israel, said Hassan Hassan, an author and researcher on Islamic groups.
“We’re seeing now the ripple effects of Oct.7. Sinwar’s gamble didn’t work,” Hassan said, suggesting that the Axis of Resistance may never recover.
“What Israel did to Hezbollah in two weeks is almost equal to a whole year of degrading Hamas in Gaza. With Hezbollah, three layers of leadership have been eliminated, its military command has been decimated, and its important leader Hassan Nasrallah has been assassinated,” added Hassan.
However, Sinwar’s grip on the Hamas remains unwavering, despite some signs of dissent among Gazans.
He was chosen as the Islamist movement’s overall leader after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was killed in July by a suspected Israeli strike during a visit to Tehran. Israel has not confirmed its involvement in the strike.
Operating from the shadows of a network of labyrinthine tunnels under Gaza, two Israeli sources said Sinwar and his brother, also a top commander, appear to have so far survived Israeli airstrikes, which have reportedly killed his deputy Mohammed Deif and other senior leaders.
Dubbed “The Face of Evil” by Israel, Sinwar operates in secrecy, moving constantly and using trusted messengers for non-digital communication, according to three Hamas officials and one regional official. He has not been seen in public since Oct. 7.
Over months of failed ceasefire talks, led by Qatar and Egypt, that focused on swapping prisoners for hostages, Sinwar was the sole decision-maker, three Hamas sources said. Negotiators would wait for days for responses filtered through a secretive chain of messengers.
Hamas and Israel did not respond to requests for comment.
Sinwar’s high tolerance for suffering, both for himself and for the Palestinian people, in the name of a cause, was apparent when he helped negotiate the 2011 exchange of 1,027 prisoners, himself included, for one kidnapped Israeli soldier held in Gaza. The kidnapping by Hamas had led to an Israeli assault on the coastal enclave and thousands of Palestinian deaths. Half a dozen people who know Sinwar told Reuters his resolve was shaped by an impoverished childhood in Gaza’s refugee camps and a brutal 22 years in Israeli custody, including a period in Ashkelon, the town his parents called home before fleeing after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
The question of hostages and prisoner swaps is deeply personal for Sinwar, said all the sources, who requested anonymity to speak freely about sensitive matters. He has vowed to free all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Sinwar became a member of Hamas soon after its founding in the 1980s, adopting the group’s radical Islamist ideology, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in historic Palestine and opposes Israel’s existence.
The ideology views Israel not only as a political rival but as an occupying force on Muslim land. Seen in this light, hardships and suffering are often interpreted by him and his followers as part of a larger Islamic belief of sacrifice, experts on Islamic movements say.
“What lies behind his resolve is tenacity of ideology, tenacity of goal. He’s ascetic and satisfied with little,” said one senior Hamas official who requested anonymity.

FROM SACKCLOTH TO LEADER
Before the war, Sinwar, would sometimes tell of his early life in Gaza during decades of Israeli occupation, once saying his mother made clothes from empty UN food-aid sacks, according to Gaza resident Wissam Ibrahim, who has met him.
In a semi-autobiographical novel written in prison, Sinwar described scenes of troops bulldozing Palestinian houses, “like a monster crushing its prey’s bones,” before Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
A ruthless enforcer tasked with punishing Palestinians suspected of informing for Israel, Sinwar then made his name as a prison leader, emerging as a street hero from a 22-year Israeli sentence for masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians. He then quickly rose to the top of the Hamas ranks.
His understanding of the everyday hardships and brutal realities in Gaza was well-received by Gazans and made people feel at ease, four journalists and three Hamas officials said, despite his fearsome reputation and explosive anger. Sinwar is regarded by Arab and Palestinian officials as the architect of Hamas’ strategy and military capabilities, bolstered through his strong ties with Iran, which he visited in 2012.
Before orchestrating the Oct. 7 raids Sinwar made no secret of his desire to strike his enemy hard.
In a speech the year before, he vowed to send a flood of fighters and rockets to Israel, hinting at a war that would either unite the world to establish a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in 1967, or leave the Jewish nation isolated on the global stage. By the time of the speech, Sinwar and Deif had already hatched secret plans for the assault. They were even running training drills in public that simulated such an attack.
His goals have not been fulfilled. While the issue is once again at the top of the global agenda, the prospect of a Palestinian nation is as distant as ever. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected a post-war plan for Gaza that would include a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

’HEAD HARDER THAN A ROCK’
Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to four life sentences, accused of orchestrating the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four suspected Palestinian informants.
Nabih Awadah, a former Lebanese Communist militant who was imprisoned with Sinwar in Ashkelon between 1991-95, said the Hamas leader viewed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as “disastrous” and a ruse by Israel, which he said would only relinquish Palestinian land “by force, not by negotiations.”
Calling him “willful and dogmatic,” Awadah said Sinwar would light up with joy whenever he heard of attacks against Israelis by Hamas or Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. For him, military confrontation was the only path “to liberating Palestine” from Israeli occupation.
Awadah said Sinwar was an “influential model to all prisoners, even those who were not Islamists or religious.”
Michael Koubi, a former official with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar for 180 hours in prison, said Sinwar clearly stood out for his ability to intimidate and command.
Koubi once asked the militant, then aged 28 or 29, why he was not already married. “He told me Hamas is my wife, Hamas is my child. Hamas for me is everything.” Sinwar married after his release from prison in 2011 and has three children.
In jail, he continued to pursue Palestinian spies, Awadah said, echoing reports from Shin Bet interrogators.
His sharp instincts and caution allowed him to identify and expose Shin Bet informants infiltrated in the prison, Awadah said.
He said Sinwar’s leadership was pivotal during a hunger strike in 1992, in which he led over 1,000 prisoners to survive solely on water and salt. Sinwar negotiated with prison authorities and refused to settle for partial concessions. He also used his time in prison to learn fluent Hebrew.
Awadah said Sinwar frequently recalled that Ashkelon, where they were imprisoned together, was his family’s ancestral hometown.
When playing table tennis in the courtyard of Ashkelon jail, in present day Israel, Sinwar would often play barefoot, saying he wanted his feet to touch the land of Palestine.
“Sinwar often told us: ‘I’m not in prison; I’m on my land. I am free here, in my country.’”