For Children of Gaza, War Means No School, No Indication When Formal Learning Might Return 

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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For Children of Gaza, War Means No School, No Indication When Formal Learning Might Return 

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)

Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school.

In Israel's war with Hamas, Atef's home has been bombed, his teacher killed and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people. He lives in a cramped tent with his family in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where he sleeps clinging to his grandmother and fears walking alone even during the day.

Since the war erupted Oct. 7, all of Gaza's schools have closed — leaving hundreds of thousands of students like Atef without formal schooling or a safe place to spend their days. Aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets and their minds focused on something other than the war, as heavy fighting continues across the enclave and has expanded into the southern city of Rafah and intensified in the north.

"What we’ve lost most is the future of our children and their education," said Irada Ismael, Atef’s grandmother. "Houses and walls are rebuilt, money can be earned again ... but how do I compensate for (his) education?"

Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis, with the head of the UN's World Food Program determining a "full-blown famine" is already underway in the north.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. About 80% of Gaza’s population has been driven from homes. Much of Gaza is damaged or destroyed, including nearly 90% of school buildings, according to aid group estimates.

Children are among the most severely affected, with the UN estimating some 19,000 children have been orphaned and nearly a third under the age of 2 face acute malnutrition. In emergencies, education takes a back seat to safety, health and sanitation, say education experts, but the consequences are lasting.

"The immediate focus during conflict isn’t on education, but the disruption has an incredibly long-term effect," said Sonia Ben Jaafar, of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education in the Arab world. "The cost at this point is immeasurable."

Before the war, Gaza was home to more than 625,000 students and some 20,000 teachers in its highly literate population, according to the UN In other conflicts, aid groups can create safe spaces for children in neighboring countries — for example, Poland for shelter and schooling during the war in Ukraine.

That's not possible in Gaza, a densely populated enclave locked between the sea, Israel and Egypt. Since Oct 7, Palestinians from Gaza haven't been allowed to cross into Israel. Egypt has let a small number of Palestinians leave.

"They’re unable to flee, and they remain in an area that continues to be battered," said Tess Ingram, of UNICEF. "It’s very hard to provide them with certain services, such as mental health and psychosocial support or consistent education and learning."

Aid groups hope classes will resume by September. But even if a cease-fire is brokered, much of Gaza must be cleared of mines, and rebuilding schools could take years.

In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities — games, drawing, drama, art — not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine, in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war — Atef's grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes and missiles.

Finding free space is among the biggest challenges. Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in homes still standing.

It took volunteer teachers more than two months to clear one room in a school in Deir al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.

"Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step," Ingram said, but "ultimately the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides."

This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12 for play-based numbers and literacy learning in Rafah. But UNICEF says those plans could be disrupted by Israel's operation there.

Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll — it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labor, sexual violence, trafficking and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.

"Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible," said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.

Palestinians say they've seen more children take to Gaza's streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.

"The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate, canned goods," said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. "There is nothing for them to do."

Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted, with the world around them at war.

Sabreen al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir al-Balah from Gaza City, said it's particularly hard for the many who've seen relatives die.

"When you speak in front of children," al-Khatib said, "what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?"

On Oct. 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin — Lama's younger sister — was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent. Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir al-Balah.

"It is a disaster," she said. "My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school."



Hospital in Jordan Offers Injured Gazans Hope for Recovery 

Palestinian student Eyad Kalab, 17, who was injured in his leg from a bullet on March 5, 2024 and left Gaza with his mother leaving five sisters and his father behind, undergoes physiotherapy with the help of physiotherapist Zaid Alqasi, 34, at the Reconstructive Surgery Hospital of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Amman, Jordan, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinian student Eyad Kalab, 17, who was injured in his leg from a bullet on March 5, 2024 and left Gaza with his mother leaving five sisters and his father behind, undergoes physiotherapy with the help of physiotherapist Zaid Alqasi, 34, at the Reconstructive Surgery Hospital of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Amman, Jordan, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Hospital in Jordan Offers Injured Gazans Hope for Recovery 

Palestinian student Eyad Kalab, 17, who was injured in his leg from a bullet on March 5, 2024 and left Gaza with his mother leaving five sisters and his father behind, undergoes physiotherapy with the help of physiotherapist Zaid Alqasi, 34, at the Reconstructive Surgery Hospital of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Amman, Jordan, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinian student Eyad Kalab, 17, who was injured in his leg from a bullet on March 5, 2024 and left Gaza with his mother leaving five sisters and his father behind, undergoes physiotherapy with the help of physiotherapist Zaid Alqasi, 34, at the Reconstructive Surgery Hospital of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Amman, Jordan, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)

Karam Nawjaa, 17, was so badly injured when an Israeli strike hit his home in Gaza nearly a year ago that his own cousin, pulling him from the rubble, did not recognize him.

After rushing Karam to hospital he returned to continue searching for his cousin all night in the rubble.

In that strike on Feb. 14, 2024, Karam lost his mother, a sister and two brothers. As well as receiving serious burns to his face and body, he lost the ability to use his arms and hands.

Now, the burns are largely healed and he is slowly regaining the use of his limbs after months of treatment at a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Jordanian capital Amman which operates a program of reconstructive surgery.

"I only remember that on that day, February 14, there was a knock on our door... I opened it, my brother came in, and after that... (I remember) nothing," he said.

"Before the war I was studying, and thank God, I was an outstanding student," Karam said, adding that his dream had been to become a dentist. Now he does not think about the future.

"What happened, happened... you feel that all your ambitions have been shattered, that what happened to you has destroyed you."

Karam is one of many patients from Gaza being treated at Amman's Specialized Hospital for Reconstructive Surgery, Al-Mowasah Hospital. He shares a room there with his younger sister and their father.

"All these patients are war victims... with complex injuries, complex burns... They need very long rehabilitation services, both surgical but also physical and mental," said Moeen Mahmood Shaief, head of the MSF mission in Jordan.

"The stories around those patients are heartbreaking, a lot of them have lost their families" and require huge support to be reintegrated into normal life, he added.

Israel's 15-month offensive in Gaza has killed almost 47,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Health Ministry figures, and left the coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble that will take years to rebuild. Most of the population was displaced.

The campaign was launched after Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Displaced Palestinians have been returning to their mostly destroyed homes this week after a ceasefire came into effect on Jan. 19.