Children in Gaza Defy Trauma to Return to School

A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Children in Gaza Defy Trauma to Return to School

A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Children have returned to school in Gaza, taking classes in tents or in the rubble of schools where families sheltered during the war, but trauma, aid blockades and the threat of more fighting could derail their drive to learn.

At least 14,500 children were killed in the war and thousands wounded, according to UNICEF. More than 400 teachers were also killed, the UN says, and now most of Gaza's children need mental health support for trauma, aid agencies say.

Children are not necessarily just picking up from where they left off when the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, "because of all the learning loss and the deep psychological impact of the war," said Kate McLennan, Middle East regional advisor on education at rights group War Child.

"There is also trauma attached to schools, which are generally understood as places of learning and safety and where you go to play with your friends (but have) been used as shelters," she said, Reuters reported.

"So, there is that alternative use of a school which has a psychological impact on children."

A fragile truce was declared between Hamas and Israel in January and as of March 3, more than 150,000 students had enrolled in 165 government schools, with over 7,000 teachers mobilised, the UN said, citing the Education Ministry in Gaza.

But the challenges are huge.

More than 658,000 school-aged children do not have access to formal education and almost 95% of school buildings have been damaged by Israeli strikes and fighting with 88% of them needing major reconstruction, said a report by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster, which includes UN agencies and other international aid groups.

Desks and chairs have been pulverised and teaching materials destroyed while reconstruction has been delayed by aid blockades by Israel.

The blockades have impeded efforts to establish more learning spaces and rebuild damaged schools, said Alun McDonald, head of media and external relations at Islamic Relief, a British-based charity.

"Hundreds of large tents that were meant to be used for temporary learning spaces have been blocked from entering (Gaza), even during the ceasefire period," McDonald said.

The head of the Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) has warned there could be another hunger crisis if the blockades continue. Israel says the blockades are designed to pressure Hamas in ceasefire talks.

"Children can't learn when they are being starved and bombed," McDonald said. "Getting children back into school is an urgent priority, but the challenges are absolutely massive."

 

LEARNING IMPEDED BY TRAUMA

 

This month Israel stopped deliveries of food, medicine and fuel into Gaza and cut electricity supply in a bid to pressure Hamas. Aid agencies said the power cut could threaten clean water supplies.

Around 32,000 students have registered to take their final high school exams, according to the UN, but there is a lack of tablets, internet access and charging stations to facilitate the process.

There is also a shortage of large tents and recreational and psycho-social kits to help students learn because of restrictions on aid, including the blocking of 10 pre-approved trucks carrying basic education supplies in February, UN agencies said.

But it is not just the physical damage and shortages that are holding children back.

"One of the things that we know from our work in all conflict and post-conflict and development contexts is that the psychological trauma and the psychosocial support needs of children are so high that it's related to brain development as well," said McLennan.

"The academic content is not going to stick if the conditions of the brain are not ready to ... deal with that," she said.

A study by academics and UNRWA last year said the war could set the education of children in Gaza back by up to five years.

"The lost education will affect an entire generation of children in Gaza for the rest of their lives," McDonald said.

 

 

 



What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
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What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)

Iran and the United States will hold talks Saturday in Oman, their third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The talks follow a first round held in Muscat, Oman, where the two sides spoke face to face. They then met again in Rome last weekend before this scheduled meeting again in Muscat.

Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country. He has repeatedly suggested military action against Iran remained a possibility, while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to jumpstart these talks.

Khamenei has warned Iran would respond to any attack with an attack of its own.

Here’s what to know about the letter, Iran’s nuclear program and the tensions that have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 revolution.

Why did Trump write the letter? Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, then gave a television interview the next day in which he acknowledged sending it. He said: “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”

Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks while ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a military strike by Israel or the US could target Iranian nuclear sites.

A previous letter from Trump during his first term drew an angry retort from the supreme leader.

But Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term led to face-to-face meetings, though no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program capable of reaching the continental US.

How did the first round go? Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, hosted the first round of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The two men met face to face after indirect talks and immediately agreed to this second round in Rome.

Witkoff later made a television appearance in which he suggested 3.67% enrichment for Iran could be something the countries could agree on. But that’s exactly the terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck under US President Barack Obama, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew America.

Witkoff hours later issued a statement underlining something: “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal.” Araghchi and Iranian officials have latched onto Witkoff’s comments in recent days as a sign that America was sending it mixed signals about the negotiations.

Yet the Rome talks ended up with the two sides agreeing to starting expert-level talks this Saturday. Analysts described that as a positive sign, though much likely remains to be agreed before reaching a tentative deal.

Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry the West? Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, has warned in a televised interview that his country has the capability to build nuclear weapons, but it is not pursuing it and has no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections. However, he said if the US or Israel were to attack Iran over the issue, the country would have no choice but to move toward nuclear weapon development.

“If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” he said.

Why are relations so bad between Iran and the US? Iran was once one of the US’s top allies in the Middle East under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. The revolution followed, led by Khomeini, and created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s saw the US back Saddam Hussein. The “Tanker War” during that conflict saw the US launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, while the US later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the American military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the US have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Middle East that persist today.