GAZA, (PIC)
At least 800,000 students have been deprived of education for the second school year running since the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip started in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
In a statement on Thursday, the ministry explained that the Israeli war on Gaza deprived over 650 primary and secondary school students, as well as about 100,000 higher education students and about 35,000 kindergarten children, of attending their schools.
The ministry accused the Israeli occupation army of persisting in its brutal attacks on Gaza children and depriving them of their right to protection and safe education as the war entered its second year.
The ministry said that the Israeli army had killed, since the beginning of the war, over 11,600 school-age children, adding that tens of thousands of children were also injured and traumatized, with many of them having physical disabilities.
More than 750 teachers and employees working in the education sector were martyred and hundreds of them were injured, while 1,100 higher education students and 134 scientists, academics and professors were also killed and thousands of them were injured, according to the ministry.
“The occupation army has continued to target educational facilities repeatedly, although the remaining ones are being used as shelter centers for the displaced,” the ministry said, accusing Israeli forces of destroying 93 percent of the schools and the facilities belonging to the education sector.
135 academic and administrative buildings belonging to universities, colleges and higher education institutes were also destroyed by the Israeli army during the war, the ministry added.
The ministry called on the international community and its institutions to intervene urgently and take effective steps to ensure the protection of children and educational facilities and pressure the Israeli government to stop its crimes against the education sector.
The ministry also called for pressuring Israel to allow the entry of emergency educational aid into Gaza, including tents, mobile classrooms, stationery and school supplies.
