'Many obstacles' for Palestinian education one year into Gaza war

Education Minister Amjad Barham says the conflict has led to unprecedented difficulties educating young people

Schools throughout Gaza have been turned into shelters. EPA

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Palestinian authorities are working urgently to return students to regular schooling one year after the Gaza war put unprecedented barriers to education across the Palestinian Territories, a senior official said.

The most urgent crisis is in Gaza, Palestinian Minister of Education Amjad Barham told The National, where authorities launched an e-learning plan in September and continue to try to hold rudimentary face-to-face classes to compensate for a lost academic year. The Gaza War has displaced about nine in 10 Gazans, according to the UN, and led to 625,000 Gazan school-age children missing the academic year.

The continuing Israeli military campaign in Gaza, settler violence in the occupied West Bank and strict checkpoints that affect students travelling to school raise doubts of even basic education returning to normal, stoking fears that a young generation of traumatised Palestinians will never fully recover from the effects of the war.

“The [Israeli] occupation is trying its best to prevent us from bringing the education system back to Gaza,” Mr Barham said, drawing attention to the number of educational facilities destroyed during the conflict. More than 280 of 448 public schools have been destroyed, according to ReliefWeb, and all of Gaza's universities have been hit. Israel’s military maintains that Hamas militants hide behind civilian infrastructure, including schools.

“There are many obstacles. It is very difficult to send materials like tablets, laptops and books to our students for e-learning,” Mr Barham said. “After this war is over, we’re looking to have temporary schools built and return to face-to-face teaching.”

“Even now, you’ll see videos of children studying in streets and camps, determined not to lose the academic year and hope. People are working together to have teaching centres inside the camps as well.”

Mr Barham added that schools run by UNRWA, the cash-strapped UN agency for Palestinian refugees that educates about 50 per cent of Gaza’s children, are also being destroyed in the Israeli campaign. Israel regularly accuses the organisation of harbouring and employing Hamas militants and having a curriculum that incites against Jews. UNRWA says 188 of its 288 schools in the strip have been attacked by the Israeli military.

Educational authorities are also having to deal with challenges outside Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, settler violence, which has sharply increased since October 7, has targeted schools on a number of occasions. Mr Barham spoke about a visit to Al Ka’abneh school near Jericho, which was attacked by settlers in September, injuring seven people.

As cases like this mount in Area C, the part of the West Bank where Israel has full military and civil control, Mr Barham said his ministry can only “try its best” to integrate children fleeing the violence in safer areas where the Palestinian Authority, the government in which he serves, has civil control.

In Jerusalem’s Old City, where the PA has schools, students have been reporting an increase in Israeli checkpoint restrictions since October 7, Mr Barham said. Checkpoints can “stop our students from accessing the schools or hold them up”.