Gaza children return to school after years of war and displacement

Children in Gaza are heading back to school as a new academic year begins, returning to classrooms that remain heavily damaged and lacking basic equipment after years of war.

At a school in Nuseirat run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, some classrooms have no desks, leaving children to sit on blankets on the floor. Others have old, damaged desks that survived the war.

For many children, the years since the war began have meant repeated displacement, fleeing airstrikes and shelling and, at times, spending their days searching for water and food for their families instead of studying and spending time with friends.

For some families, returning to school has brought back a sense of routine that has been missing during the war.

“I arrived to find a normal school environment—as much as was possible—with a morning assembly and a warm welcome from the administration,” Asmaa Al-Hour, a mother with two children attending school, said.

“My child is overjoyed; he had been waiting since dawn to go to school, just as he had seen his siblings do. I also have a daughter in the fourth grade; she attended classes for the first month, having spent the three years of the war wishing she could at least visit a school,” al-Hour added.

UNRWA said more than 280,000 children are now attending its schools and educational tents.

Tawfiq al-Hourani, head of UNRWA’s education program said UNRWA hopes to “improve the educational environment and restore it to the state it was in three years ago.”

“Three years ago, UNRWA had 182 fully equipped schools; however, we have unfortunately lost more than 95 percent of them, and those that remain are occupied by displaced people,” al-Hourani said.

Schools began operating last November after the October ceasefire, but the education system has remained under severe strain.

Some school buildings are still damaged, while others have been used as shelters for displaced families.

About 700,000 children ages 4 to 17 in Gaza had missed formal in-person schooling for almost three years as of April, according to UNICEF.

About 420,000 had no face-to-face learning at all since October 2023.