Gazans Strive to Study as War Shatters Education System

 A boy looks on as Palestinians prepare to flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 12, 2024. (Reuters)
A boy looks on as Palestinians prepare to flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 12, 2024. (Reuters)
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Gazans Strive to Study as War Shatters Education System

 A boy looks on as Palestinians prepare to flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 12, 2024. (Reuters)
A boy looks on as Palestinians prepare to flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 12, 2024. (Reuters)

Pupils sitting cross-legged on the sand take classes in a tent near Khan Younis in Gaza. Two sisters connect online to a West Bank school from Cairo. A professor in Germany helps Palestinian students link up with European universities.
After watching their schools and universities be closed, damaged or destroyed in more than seven months of war, Gazans sheltering inside and outside the territory are doing what they can to restart some learning, Reuters said.
"We are receiving students, and we have a very large number of them still waiting," said Asmaa al-Astal, a volunteer teacher at the tent school near the coast in al-Mawasi, which opened in late April.
Instead of letting children lose a whole year of schooling as they cower from Israeli bombardment, "we will be with them, we will bring them here, and we will teach them," she said.
Gazans fear the conflict between Israel and Hamas has inflicted damage to their education system, a rare source of hope and pride in the enclave that will outlast the fighting.
Gaza and the occupied West Bank have internationally high literacy levels, but Israel's blockade of the coastal Palestinian enclave and repeated rounds of conflict left education fragile and under-resourced.
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.
All 12 of Gaza's higher education institutions have been destroyed or damaged, leaving nearly 90,000 students stranded, and more than 350 teachers and academics have been killed, according to Palestinian official data.
"We lost friends, we lost doctors, we lost teaching assistants, we lost professors, we lost so many things in this war," said Israa Azoum, a fourth-year medical student at Gaza City's Al Azhar University.
Azoum is volunteering at Al Aqsa hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah to help stretched staff deal with waves of patients, but also because she doesn't want to "lose the connection with science".
"I never feel tired because this is what I love doing. I love medicine, I love working as a doctor, and I don't want to forget what I have learnt," she said.
Fahid Al-Hadad, head of Al Aqsa's emergency department and a lecturer at the faculty of medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), said he hoped to start teaching again, though he had lost books and papers accumulated over more than a decade when his home in Gaza City was destroyed.
Online instruction will be complicated by weak internet, but could at least allow students to complete their degrees, he said. The buildings of IUG and Al Azhar stand badly damaged and abandoned on neighboring sites in Gaza City.
"We are ready to give in any way, but much better inside Gaza than outside. Because don't forget that we are doctors and we are working," Hadad said.
'LIFESAVING ACT'
Tens of thousands of Gazans who crossed to Egypt also face challenges. Though living in relative safety, they lack the papers to enroll their children in schools, so some have signed up for remote learning offered from the West Bank, where Palestinians have limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation.
The Palestinian embassy in Cairo is planning to supervise end-of-year exams for 800 high school students.
Kamal al-Batrawi, a 46-year-old businessman, said his two school-aged daughters began online schooling after the family arrived in the Egyptian capital five months ago.
"They take classes every day, from 8 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., as if they were in a regular school. This is a lifesaving act," he said.
In southern Gaza, where more than a million people were displaced, UN children's agency UNICEF has been organizing recreational activities like singing and dancing with some basic learning. It is planning to create 50 tents where 6,000 children will be able to take classes in three daily shifts.
"It's important to do it, but it remains a drop in the ocean," said Jonathan Crickx, head of communications for UNICEF Palestine.
Wesam Amer, Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Languages at Gaza University, said although online teaching could be an interim solution, it could not provide the physical or practical learning required for subjects like medicine and engineering.
After leaving Gaza for Germany in November, he is advising students on how to match up their courses with options at universities in the West Bank or Europe.
"The challenges of the day after the war aren't only about the infrastructure, university buildings. It is about the dozens of academics who have been killed in the war and the tough task of trying to make up for them or replace them," he said.
Those killed include IUG president Sufyan Tayeh, who died with his wife and all his five children in a strike on his sister's house in December.
Tayeh, an award-winning professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics, had a "great passion" for science, his brother Nabil told Reuters.
"Even in the middle of the war, he (Tayeh) was still working on his own research," he said.
The UN estimates that 72.5% of schools in Gaza will need full reconstruction or major rehabilitation.
Mental health and psychosocial support will also be needed for children to "feel safe in going back to a school that might have been bombed", Crickx said.



Yemeni Platform Warns of Houthis Expanding Influence to Horn of Africa

Yemenis lift placards and flags during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in solidarity with Palestinians on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
Yemenis lift placards and flags during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in solidarity with Palestinians on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Yemeni Platform Warns of Houthis Expanding Influence to Horn of Africa

Yemenis lift placards and flags during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in solidarity with Palestinians on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
Yemenis lift placards and flags during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in solidarity with Palestinians on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

A Yemeni platform focused on organized crime and money-laundering, PTOC, has warned of the dangers of the Iran-backed Houthi militias expanding their activities and influence to the Horn of Africa.

In a report, it said the militias were actively seeking to expand their operations there with the direct supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and in coordination with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is also backed by Tehran.

This is the first time that a report is filed about the Houthi plans in the Horn of Africa.

Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy of the report that details the Houthis’ expansionist plans at Iran’s direction. It discusses the Houthis’ smuggling and armament operations, recruitment and training of Africans, and identifies the officials responsible for the militias’ project in the Horn of Africa.

Overseeing the foreign expansion are leading Houthi officials Abdulwahed Abu Ras, Al-Hassan al-Marrani and Abu Haidar al-Qahoum, as well as head of the so-called security and intelligence agency Abdulhakim al-Khiwani and foreign operations agency official Hassan al-Kahlani, or Abu Shaheed.

The report also highlighted the role played by deputy Houthi foreign minister Hussein al-Azzi through diplomatic sources and figures in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and Kenya to forge intelligence, security, political and logistical ties.

Training

The report said the Houthis were keen on establishing “sensitive intelligence centers” throughout the Horn of Africa and countries surrounding Yemen. They are working on training cadres “as soon as possible” so that they can be “effectively activated at the right time to achieve the Quranic mission and common interests of all resistance countries, especially Iran, Gaza and Lebanon.”

The report obtained documents that reveal how the Houthis have established ties with African figures to “complete preparations and operations in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa to support the Houthis should they come under any international political or diplomatic pressure.”

Leading officials

The report identified several Houthi figures who are overseeing these operations, starting with IRGC official “Abu Mahdi” to the owner of the smallest boat that is used for smuggling weapons in the Red Sea.

It also spoke of the relations forged with the al-Shabaab al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia and the African mafia to smuggle Africans to Yemen in what the report described as one of the most dangerous human trafficking and organized crimes.

The PTOC report said the Houthis have recruited Africans from various countries, especially in wake of the militias’ coup in Sanaa in 2014. They have been subjected to cultural and military training and deployed at various fronts, such as Taiz, the west coast, Marib and the border.

Some of the recruits have returned to their home countries to expand the Houthi influence there.

Abu Ras and al-Kahlani

The report named Abdulwahed Naji Mohammed Abu Ras, or Abu Hussein, as the Houthis’ top official in expanding their influence in the Horn of Africa. A native of the Jawf province, he was tasked directly by top Iranian political officials and the IRGC in running this file.

Among his major tasks is coordinating with the IRGC and Houthis and directly overseeing the smuggling of IRGC and Hezbollah members from and to Yemen.

Abu Ras has avoided the spotlight for several years during which he has handled the Houthis’ most dangerous intelligence and political files.

He served as secretary of foreign affairs at the security and intelligence agency until Hassan al-Kahlani's appointment to that post. Abu Ras was then promoted to his current position at the recommendation of Houthi leader Abdulmalek al-Houthi and the IRGC leadership.

Al-Kahlani, also known as Abu Shaheed, was born in the Hajjah province in 1984. He is a known Houthi security operative as he grew up among the Houthis in Saada and Sanaa and joined the militias at a young age.

The report said al-Kahlani was part of the Sanaa terrorist cell that carried out several bombings and assassinations in wake of the killing of Houthi founder Hassan al-Houthi in 2004. He was also among the Houthi leaderships that took part in the coup in Sanaa.

Al-Kahlani now works directly under Abu Ras. He is known for his close ties to the IRGC and has been using this relationship to impose himself as the top official in the security and intelligence agency, exposing the struggle for power between him and the actual head of the agency Abdulhakim al-Khiwani.