IRIN/Gaza

For Karam Bedwan, 13, from the Zeitoun Area in Eastern Gaza City, schools have been a key part of the violence. With his family he took shelter in an UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school during the bombing, which destroyed the school he had been attending.

“This was a school and now it is gone,” he told IRIN as he toured his former school with his cousins. In the school yard he came across one of his paintings in the rubble, picking it up to take home. “It is shocking. Where are we going to study now? And why did they bomb it?” 

Israel’s military-advocate general has reportedly opened five criminal investigations into actions by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the recent conflict. During the crisis, IDF claimed school sites were being used by Hamas fighters, and that it was targeting militants near the sites. On  September 11, Human Rights Watch said the attacks on Gaza schools were in violation of the laws of war.

During the war (from  July 8 to  August 26), 500 Palestinian children were killed, and more than 3,000 injured, including 1,000 who became disabled. In addition, 1,500 children became orphans, according to figures from the Palestinian ministry of health.

As a result, UNRWA commissioner Gen Pierre Krähenbühl said many of Gaza’s hundreds of thousands of children were now “deep in trauma”.

In Israel, which was hit by thousands of rockets from Gaza, university final examinations were cancelled and summer camps shut down. Scientific studies suggest previous conflicts contributed to mental health problems in teenage Israelis.

“From my experience (in Gaza), this conflict has been the hardest for all of us, and we are getting some training to deal with the implications,” said Mohsen, a teacher in a Gaza public elementary school.

“Children will get support in the first weeks of the school year. However, it cannot be normal at all. Imagine a child sitting in his chair, while a chair nearby where his friend was sitting is now empty. How can this be justified or even forgotten? We always pray for a better future for our children.”

According to a rapid assessment report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 26 schools were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, while 122 schools were variously damaged, including 75 UNRWA schools.

The head of the Islamic University, Kamaleen Sha’th, estimates losses caused by damage to building facilities there at $3mn. At least 11 higher education organisations were hit during the war.

“We were already in a crisis and these attacks will add to our burdens, especially after these hard and long years of the blockade,” said Sha’th. The delayed academic year is due to start on  September 20. “On psychosocial support, we have a training programme to deal with our students, while we co-operate with local organisations and off-campus trainers to provide related support to Gaza residents, including children.” 

During the war, 85 schools were turned into shelters for more than 300,000 displaced persons among the roughly half a million who were displaced. After the ceasefire announcement on August 26, most of the displaced started to return to their areas and homes or moved to other houses, although more than 63,000 are still taking shelter at 29 UNRWA schools (as of  September 8), and hundreds are sheltering in two public schools.

Meanwhile, preparations are in progress to clean up and carry out maintenance and repairs in most of the schools, while search teams work to remove unexploded ordnance.

Psychosocial support efforts started during the conflict for children and their families with volunteer groups and local and international NGOs supporting work in shelters and affected areas. 

The Palestinian ministry of education has started a psychosocial support programme for students, which involves training school staff to help children mentally recover.

In one of the schools still sheltering families, psychosocial teams are working with dozens of displaced children. A watching father of five, Mustafa, 42, told IRIN: “In spite of all, we want our children to return to their normal life, classes and overcome.

“I know it is difficult because of the destruction that reached everything, and we are still here and homeless. We are still clinging to hope always for better life for all of us, and education is one of the main factors to achieve that. It is a life investment,” he said.

♦ The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) is the humanitarian news and analysis service of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (http://www.irinnews.org/)