GAZA: Gaza schoolgirl Rama Abu Seif longs to return to a classroom to study but it is now a dormitory for families displaced by war. 

Her books were burned to light fires in clay ovens. Her school bag is stuffed with clothes in case she needs to flee an Israeli bombardment quickly.

The 12-year-old missed grade six last year and will be deprived of grade seven as the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas rages on.

“Of course, the children who are my age and younger than me, they all want to go back to northern (Gaza) and relive their school days, study and play at school, but all of that is gone and we lost two years because of the war,” she said.

There are no prospects for Rama and many other children to return to school any time soon in the Gaza Strip, which has been laid to waste by Israeli bombardments.

Since the war began on Oct. 7, schools have been bombed or turned into shelters for displaced people, leaving Gaza’s estimated 625,000 school-aged children unable to attend classes.

Instead of playing sports and games in the school playground, Rama waits in long lines for her turn to collect water, which is often dirty and undrinkable.

And there is no end in sight.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, triggering a hunger and health crisis in the enclave.

Rama and her classmates can only recall better days in an impoverished yet once vibrant Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Gaza and the occupied West Bank have internationally high literacy levels, and the under-resourced education system was a rare source of hope and pride among Palestinians.

“In the past we would open the bag and find the book in it, so we would take the book and study,” Rama said.

“But now we open the bag and find clothes inside it, clothes for displacement that we take with us wherever we go, from place to place.”