The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, announced that 625,000 children in Gaza, including 300,000 UNRWA students, have lost an entire school year due to the ongoing Israeli war.
Lazzarini, in a press statement followed by Days of Palestine, highlighted that four out of every five school buildings in Gaza have been either directly hit or severely damaged, requiring urgent repairs or complete reconstruction.
According to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education, more than 10,000 students have been killed, and over 16,000 others wounded since the beginning of the mass killings in Gaza on October 7.
In a statement last Tuesday, the Ministry of Education said that the number of students killed in Gaza since the start of the attacks has exceeded 9,936, with 15,897 injured.
The ministry also reported that 119 government schools have suffered severe damage, with over 62 completely destroyed. Additionally, 191 schools, both governmental and UNRWA-run, have been bombed or vandalized.
The situation in Gaza’s higher education institutions is similarly dire. Twenty universities have sustained significant damage, with more than 31 buildings completely destroyed and 57 others partially damaged.
Since the outbreak of hostilities, over 620,000 students in Gaza have been deprived of access to education, including 39,000 high school students. Many of these children are now dealing with psychological trauma and severe health conditions as a result of the genocide.
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