Volunteers are leading informal classes in the Gaza Strip, trying to preserve what remains of children’s educational opportunities.Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
Every morning Enas Mohammed, a teacher, gathers children for lessons in reading, writing and drawing under a simple tent she set up with nylon fabric in the Al Nuseirat refugee camp. She doesn’t have a blackboard so she uses a large piece of cardboard to teach. Even with limited resources, Ms. Mohammed says the initiative helps maintain a daily routine for the children. The tent has become a small safe space where her students can learn, play, and remember the importance of education.
“I couldn’t stand seeing children sitting with nothing – no school, not even a notebook – so I decided to start a small school and teach them whatever I could,” she said.
Amid the almost total collapse of the education system in the Gaza Strip after nearly two years of fighting between Hamas and Israel, small, informal initiatives have emerged to preserve what remains of children’s educational opportunities. Volunteers, including displaced teachers and university students, organize learning groups in tents, among rubble, or even in open spaces. They rely on resources such as cardboard, small blackboards, and lessons written on paper by hand instead of textbooks to teach basic reading, writing, and math.
Displaced Palestinians attend a class inside a tent, as part of an initiative by volunteer teachers, in Gaza City, Sept. 2.Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
More than 600,000 students in Gaza are not in school, according to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). More than half of Gaza’s schools have been damaged or completely destroyed, according to UN reports. UNESCO has described the situation as an “unprecedented educational disaster,” yet little concrete action has been taken to rebuild schools or provide safe alternatives for learning.
Classrooms that were once filled with children’s voices are now rubble or overcrowded shelters for displaced families. Children who should be learning to read and write spend their days looking for water or trying to stay safe from airstrikes. Teenagers preparing for high school or university exams face an uncertain future.
Yet some young people are determined to learn in any way they can.
Layan Jabr, 16, who lives in the Al Bureij refugee camp, hasn’t attended a day of high school since the war began in October, 2023. Instead she signs up for informal learning groups whenever she hears of one through family and friends.
“I was excited to start high school and explore new subjects, but the war ruined everything,” she said. “Every time I hear about a learning initiative, I go sign up, I don’t want to lose a whole year just sitting around.”
Layan said she and her friends try to do remote learning too but that comes with challenges at a refugee camp. “There are some online programs with tests on tablets or phones, but most of the time there’s no electricity or internet, so I miss many lessons,” she said.
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Schools provide more than education; they can be places that help children cope with stresses such as war. Children can find routine and stability there, even during bombings and displacement. In some areas of Gaza informal classes are combined with recreational activities to reduce psychological pressure, especially for children who have lost family members or experienced war trauma.
Huda Abd, a mother of four children, said the destruction of the education system has robbed her children not only of learning but also of safety.
“At school, they had friends, a place to play, and a chance to learn. Now, none of that exists,” she said.
She had great hopes before the war that her children would grow up to be engineers, doctors and teachers. Now none are in school. But she refuses to give up.
“Whenever I hear about a learning tent or group, I send my children so they can benefit,” she said.
While children in the Gaza Strip remain out of school, the new academic year has already begun in the occupied West Bank. Students there have returned to classrooms, carrying their books and preparing for lessons as schools opened their doors as usual.
For Palestinians, education is a source of resilience and pride. Despite decades of conflict and hardship, Palestinian society is widely known for its strong commitment to learning. Literacy rates are among the highest in the Arab world – almost 97 per cent according to UNESCO figures – and families have always invested in their children’s education, seeing it as the main path to progress and a better future.
This contrast makes the situation in Gaza even more painful: While children elsewhere are starting a new school year, hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s children are left behind, with no classrooms to enter and no certainty about when – or if – they will be able to continue their education.
Abdul Fattah, 6, was supposed to begin kindergarten this academic year. Before the war he was still a toddler but insisted on getting a small school bag like his friends. The little boy lives in a tent for displaced people with no school, no books, not even a pencil. Instead of lining up for morning assembly at school, he spends his days standing in long lines to get water.
Children now know how to hide from airstrikes better than they know how to read or write. “The situation is very difficult,” said Ms. Abd. “We need long-term solutions so our children’s future is not lost.”