DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Bissan Younis looked dejected as she stood outside a cluster of tents surrounded by rubble and debris, a wasteland that is a common sight across the Gaza Strip. The tiny encampment was yet another makeshift school that has no room for her teenage son Kareem.
“Most of the schools are destroyed,” she told The Associated Press. “Every school I go to tells me there is no room.”
More than 600,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have missed the past two years of school because of the war between Israel and the militant Hamas group. Instead of studying and socializing, they have been repeatedly displaced, fled airstrikes and shelling and often spent their days scouring for water and food for their families.
With a ceasefire reached last month largely holding, humanitarian officials are now working frantically to reopen dozens of makeshift schools.
John Crickx, a spokesman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, said it’s critical for children to return to classes as soon as possible, not just because of basic education but also for their mental health.
“In the weeks to come, if we don’t offer education,” he said, there could be “terrible consequences for an entire generation.”
UNICEF estimates that over 630,000 Palestinian children missed out on school during the war. Crickx says that so far, only about 100,000 children have been able to return.
Separately, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, is providing some education through their contracted teachers — for about 40,000 students. Most of the UNRWA-run schools, which catered to half of the G …