GAZA (Dispatches) – About 625,000 children have been denied an education in the Gaza Strip as schools have been forced to remain closed due to the Israeli carnage, a UN body says.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in a statement on social media platform X that its crews continue to support Palestinian children through activities that help them return to learning, but this is not enough, stressing the necessity of a ceasefire now.
The war robbed the children in Gaza of their childhood, and the survivors are suffering from deep trauma, as their schools were destroyed and they lost an entire academic year without education or play, it added.
Children are the first to suffer the most in conflicts and wars, pointing out that a very large number of them have been killed and others injured, and many of them will have scars for life, the statement said.
When Nour fled her home to Rafah early in Israel’s continuing war on Gaza, she didn’t pack her two daughters’ textbooks. 
But as the assault dragged on, the Palestinian mother noticed they were beginning to forget what they had learned. Worried for their future, she took matters into her own hands. 
“I downloaded their school textbooks online and relied on YouTube channels that explain the Palestinian curriculum,” the social media activist, who preferred to be identified by her surname, told Middle East Eye.
“I went to a nearby bookstore and printed out the necessary materials, like reading lessons or exercises requiring writing, to keep them engaged. I focused on Arabic, English and maths.”
A corner in her shelter had been turned into a makeshift classroom, where she gave lessons and monthly exams to her daughters, who have been deprived of a regular education for an entire school year along with all of Gaza’s pupils. 
The Israeli war, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 15,000 children, many of them students. 
It has also destroyed all Gaza’s universities and most of its schools in what rights experts say is a deliberate policy to obliterate education in the Palestinian enclave. 
Homeschooling wasn’t easy at first, Nour said, but her children have now finished the first semester’s curriculum and are on to the second one, learning three to four hours a day.
The 35-year-old mother says the classes are good for the children’s education and mental health. 
“During the first period of displacement, I was struggling with a bad mental health condition after my sister was martyred and my family remained in the north of Gaza,” Nour told MEE.
“Then I felt that I needed to distract myself from overthinking and decided to establish a specific routine for myself and the children. I wanted to fill their time with learning instead of dwelling on displacement or fear.”
Before the war, there were 796 schools in the Gaza Strip, including 442 public schools, 70 private schools and 284 run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. 
There were 12 universities and higher education institutions.