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Special for Tel Aviv Tribune Net
Gaza- The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip deprived 785 thousand students of their right to education, for the second year in a row, after the occupation deliberately paralyzed the educational system and destroyed its components.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education in Gaza, Dr. Khaled Abu Nada, described what the educational sector is experiencing in its darkest historical stages in which he faces a complex disaster that affects hundreds of thousands of students and teachers, and threatens to lose the future of an entire generation.
Abu Nada said in an exclusive interview with Al -Jazeera Net, that the occupation, since it boded over the land of Palestine, has intentionally destroying educational institutions in an attempt to obscure the identity of the Palestinian people and break their will, and this is evident in targeting children, students and workers in the public and higher education sectors, and the bombing of educational institutions, including educational, administrative and technical buildings.
Annotel for science and its structures
Abu Nada emphasized that what is happening in Gaza is a systematic cognitive extermination, and a crime against a whole generation that is intended to arise weak, ignorant, and without a horizon.
He pointed out that the continuous extermination war lost 600,000 students in the basic stage their right to education for the second year in a row, in addition to 74 thousand students in high school within the payments of 2024 and 2025, and nearly 100 thousand students and university students, and that all of them live in severe displacement conditions that lack the lowest elements of life.
With regard to the size of the destruction that affected educational institutions, Abu Nada explained that about 96% of school buildings were damaged by the barbaric and direct Israeli shelling, and that 89% of these buildings were out of service due to their complete or partial destruction, and they need significant construction interventions before returning them to service.
He pointed out that the majority of schools have turned into shelter centers for the displaced, and the occupation continues to target them continuously and directly, even though it includes tents and educational initiatives in which hundreds of children are taught.
Universities were also subjected to Israeli targeting, and their facilities were destroyed and their educational programs were disrupted, the last of which was the bombing of the buildings of the Islamic University branch in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip.
The official Abu Nada stressed that what the educational sector is exposed to is not only material harm, but rather a clear war crime aimed at destroying the future of the Palestinian people.
The occupation was killed – according to Abu Nada – about 13 thousand students during the continuous war until now, in addition to about 800 educational employees while performing their duty or in their homes.
He added, stressing Israel’s systematic policy to destroy education and target minds and competencies, that 150 university professors, scientists and researchers assassinated by the occupation in operations targeting the academic elite, which constitutes an attempt to survey the intellectual and cognitive identity of the Palestinian people.
Plan to advance
Despite the Israeli criminality and brutality and the aggravation of the disaster, the efforts of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education did not stop to maintain the minimum educational process, according to Abu Nada. And made several steps, most notably:
- Supporting the popular education approach through field schools, educational points and individual and group societal initiatives, currently enrolled in more than 250 thousand students.
- It also approved electronic platforms to help students who have access to them, and enrolled in them more than 300 thousand students from registered in public and private schools and those affiliated with UNRWA.
- Abu Nada pointed to the creation of temporary systems for education in times of emergency in line with international standards for the minimum education in emergency conditions.
- In addition to coordination with local and international institutions to provide psychological and social support activities for students and teachers, and to provide health services within shelters, educational points and initiatives related to health awareness, hygiene, water and sanitation.
He stressed that the ministry worked on a comprehensive evaluation of the damage to the educational sector, and set a plan for gradual recovery, and started it with a remedy for the future of 37 thousand students who were supposed to end the high school stage in the year 2024, and worked to prepare a suitable mechanism for the exams despite the difficult field conditions, but the continuation of the war and the barbarity of the bombing prevented its holding more than once.
He warned that those enrolled in the high school batch for the year 2025 threatened with a loss of two years of education, and said that, and to prevent this, the ministry prepared an intense plan to compensate for the loss, and it has succeeded to a large extent in helping students.
Outside the path
The Undersecretary Abu Nada pointed out that the educators are making double efforts to ensure the minimum educational justice of these students despite the tragic reality, hoping that students can finish the school year to enroll in higher education.
According to the initial survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, more than 350 thousand students are still outside the scope of the educational activities supervised by the ministry, which means that they are not enrolled in any educational path, or that they joined non -certified educational activities, which constitutes a real threat to their future and warns of a catastrophe that falls at total enrollment rates of dangerous levels and unprecedented levels.
Abu Nada pointed out that after the rates of enrollment in Palestinian education were the highest in the world, and illiteracy levels are the lowest in the Middle East, there has become a real threat to illiteracy and high school dropouts to record levels, as the educational void formed a future threat to the structure of Palestinian society, cognitively and behaviorally.
He called on the Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to urgently move to stop the aggression, rebuild schools and educational institutions, support teachers and psychological and educational programs, and the need to provide scholarships for the affected outstanding students, and stressed that saving education in Gaza is not luxury, but rather a human, moral and brotherly duty that cannot be postponed.
