Education in ruins: Gaza's children on losing their right to learn

CNN

29-03-2025

Thirteen-year-old Farah Zaqzouq loved school. Her eyes light up as she describes her daily routine before the war in Gaza and her school, which she could see from her bedroom window.
'I used to wake up early and mom made me breakfast, I'd get dressed in my school clothes, then did my hair… I'd go in and say hi to the principal and my teachers, I'd help with the school activities. I was top of my class.'
Her smile disappears as her mind switches back to her present-day reality. Both her home and school have been destroyed. Stony-faced, she walks over the ruins of the place of learning that once made her feel safe and happy.
Damaged
Destroyed
Farah's school is in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, formerly a bustling city of 400,000. She was one month into seventh grade when the war began in October 2023, following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel. This satellite photo shows her school intact on March 5, 2024.
Source: MAXAR
By the time of this photo on February 16, 2025, Farah's school has been heavily damaged. An explosives expert who analyzed footage and imagery for CNN concluded that her school was part of an 'Israeli demolition operation' in which explosives were placed in the building and then detonated.
Photo credit: MAXAR
replay with audio
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Source: X/Twitter, @ytirawi
This video, posted on social media, shows that moment on March 28, 2024.
The Israeli military tells CNN it struck the building as it 'served as a gathering point for terrorists and a weapons storage facility.' The IDF claims Hamas built military networks beneath and within schools.
Photo credit: MAXAR
Farah's school is among the 70% of school buildings classified as having had a 'direct hit' in Israeli strikes, according to the UNICEF-led Education Cluster. Every level of educational institutions has been impacted by the conflict: 24% of university campuses have been
destroyed .
Source: Education Cluster, as of Dec. 19, 2024
When combined with school buildings and university campuses that have sustained some level of
damage , at least 95% of all educational institutions in Gaza have been affected, according to the Education Cluster's assessment.
Source: Education Cluster, as of Dec. 19, 2024
After Israel issued a new evacuation order on March 18, some damaged schools that may have been partially in use are now completely off-limits.
Source: Israel Defense Forces
Damaged buildings next to Farah's school are being used by displaced families as temporary shelters.
For the second academic year running, the education system in Gaza has been non-functioning. None of the 745,000 students there -- from elementary school to higher education -- have had any formal schooling for over a year, according to the UN.
Most schools that still exist have become shelters for the displaced, it added. In a place where 47% of the population is under 18, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the impact is huge.
Just six months into the war, in April 2024, UN experts asked this question: Is Israel committing 'scholasticide'?
This is a term which refers to the systematic destruction of a country's education, through the killing or detention of teachers and students, and destruction of educational infrastructure.
Children attend class in the severely damaged former school buildings.
The IDF did not address the scholasticide accusation directly, but said it seeks to minimize civilian harm while Hamas 'cynically exploits civilian infrastructure for terror purposes.' The Israeli military has previously accused Hamas of using schools-turned-shelters as command-and-control centers. Hamas denies embedding fighters in civilian infrastructure.
The targeting of schools is considered a violation of international humanitarian law.
UN experts said attacks on schools 'present a systematic pattern of violence aimed at dismantling the very foundation of Palestinian society.'
The school chalkboard is still being used despite the damage.
By the beginning of the last academic year, in September 2024, almost 10,000 students and at least 411 educational staff had been killed, according to UNICEF.Thousands more children have been killed since then.
A report by academics and the UN's Palestinian refugee agency in September 2024 found children's education was projected to be set back by up to five years.
Professor of international education Pauline Rose, of the University of Cambridge, tells CNN there has been a call for Israel's actions to be recognized as 'scholasticide' and for the world to realize that 'we've got a generation of children that are really losing out on education, and that has implications for the future of Gaza.'
Farah Zaqzouq on her school before and now. Replay with sound Replay
The wreckage of schools, the resilience of students
Masa and her father walk to school along a road lined with rubble.
Eleven-year-old Masa used to walk to school on her own, a level of independence her father no longer dares give her. Even during the ceasefire, he worried about dangers in the rubble, unexploded ordnance, an unexpected airstrike.
Twice a day, he walked with her, navigating the apocalyptic landscape of the once-bustling Khan Younis.
The route to school takes them past destroyed buildings and homes.
The UN estimates that Gaza has been reduced to 51 million tons of rubble. Entire neighborhoods have been decimated, man-made destruction resembling the aftermath of an earthquake.
Unexploded bombs and munitions buried among the rubble pose a particular threat with at least 10% of ammunition fired potentially failing to detonate, according to UN demining experts. They add that it could take 14 years to clear these unexploded bombs.
Masa's three-story family home was destroyed. Her father salvaged what he could, and they now live in one room, patched up with tarp and a tin roof that leaks.
Masa on how she finds it difficult to focus when studying. Replay with sound Replay
Masa uses this spot on the floor to study in her damaged home.
Masa sits on the floor to study; the internet is a pre-war memory. A big challenge to learning -- the lack of power.
Before October 2023, Gazans had an average of just 10 hours a day of electricity. Days after the conflict started, Israel cut off Gaza's power feeder lines, blocked fuel imports and eventually the only power station stopped operating. Gazans now rely on solar panels and batteries for electricity, according to the UN.
Children return to an UNRWA school in Gaza City on March 12, 2025. Credit: UNRWA
Another challenge is the lack of educational supplies, from textbooks and notepaper to pencils and erasers.During the 2-month ceasefire, progress was made.
UNICEF says it was able to rapidly expand its learning spaces to 143.The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) provided online schooling via WhatsApp to some 180,000 schoolchildren. Only those with devices and internet access could benefit; both seen as a luxury in present-day Gaza. The agency said it was able to resume some direct learning for about 40,000 children.
Most temporary solutions are in limbo since the return to war.
The teachers, students and their families helped clear this classroom of rubble and debris so it could be used to teach in once more.
Amid all these obstacles, teachers like Doha Al-Attar try to provide a semblance of a school environment for their students. 'We organize recreational activities, play with them, sing in the courtyard, and offer them small gifts to make them feel happy and connected to the place,' she says.
UNICEF estimated that 13% of teachers in Gaza had been killed or injured as of August 2024. Education, although vital, is inevitably further down the list of priorities for Gazans than ensuring their health, sustenance and shelter.
The mental health toll on educators in Gaza is also high, a study found. Many are still seeking to support students while suffering their own losses and coming to terms with personal trauma.
A desk and chair are missing their wooden parts. Nowadays in Gaza, wood is often burned for heating or cooking.
For children in Gaza, losing the opportunity to learn comes with the loss of the safe space and more formal psychosocial support that schools provided.
'Schools give kids stability, and that's very important because children in Gaza are deeply traumatized,' says Rosalia Bollen of UNICEF.§
'I used to have hope before the war, that by investing in her education, she could become a doctor,' Masa's father says. Now, she cannot focus, he says – her mind filled with thoughts about displacement, the constant cold and fears for the future.
Without graduates, what's next for Gaza's professional class?
A university in Gaza has been reduced to a shell.
Four of the eight children in the Abu Odeh family in Khan Younis should have graduated from university last year or this. None of them will. One brother was killed in the war, the future for the rest is uncertain.
Manar Sobh Abdul Latif Abu Odeh, 23 years old, was in her fifth year of a degree in architecture. She attended lectures until 4 p.m., then studied in the university she says had everything she needed. That changed overnight after Israel launched its military offensive following the October 7 attacks.
Manar on the challenges trying to keep up with her architecture studies. Replay with sound Replay
Manar continues her studies online -- when she can access the internet -- not knowing if she will be able to graduate next year, or even later.
Having been displaced more than a dozen times, Manar says she has missed entire semesters and examinations and has had no face-to-face time with professors.
Children's rights charity Save the Children says extended periods out of education significantly increase the risk of students never completing their studies, with girls being more likely to drop out permanently.
UNRWA established a formal education system in 1950, in the absence of a Palestinian state. Pre-conflict, almost half of school-age children attended UNRWA schools in Gaza.
Sisters Manar and Rawan walk up the rubble-strewn stairs to the fourth floor, where they can get an internet connection.
Israel has now banned the UN agency from operating, accusing it of ties to Hamas, which the UN denies.
'We are already teetering with a possible lost generation of children,' UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told CNN, rejecting Israel's claim it can simply be replaced by another UN agency. 'It could become a real plague for all of us if we do not tackle the question of education.'
To study, Manar and her older sister Rawan now have to climb to the fourth floor of a building that seems to defy gravity. A shell of twisted steel and buckled supports, it represents their best chance of an internet connection, allowing them to download a YouTube lecture to fill in some of the extensive gaps in their education.
Amid the wreckage of the fourth floor, Manar and Rawan sit to download and watch their coursework.
Graduation is not guaranteed for Manar. 'Only if they allow us to go to field training; it is possible we won't be able to do that.' A qualified architect in a strip of land largely reduced to rubble would be worth her weight in gold.
Rawan should be a clinical pharmacist by now, another vital role in post-war Gaza. But thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and the war, she has been able to attend university for only two of the six years required. A lack of functioning healthcare systems throws her vital practical training into doubt.
From just this one family, also counting other siblings at university, Gaza's professional class has likely been denied a qualified pharmacist, architect, doctor and engineer.
Gaza's last graduating class In the final academic year before the conflict began, more than 25,000 students -- of which 46% are women -- graduated from higher education institutions. For the remaining more than 115,000 students who were enrolled, their future is uncertain.
Source: Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education
After Rawan's brother and grandparents were killed, she says her motivation to study faltered. Yet still, she says, 'We continued, and we tried to do things within what is available.'
Even before October 2023, 70% of graduates in Gaza were unemployed. As of December 2024, the overall unemployment rate was 80%. With private businesses and civil infrastructure decimated in the war, there are few job opportunities to be had.
Memories of having to eat leaves and plants to survive, sleeping on the street, being constantly afraid, stay with Rawan even as she tries to study. 'I was discussing my graduation project under fire, bullets were fired above my head, to the point a bullet passed right next to me. God protected me that day,' she says.
UNICEF says every child in Gaza has some level of trauma. Only by getting them back into education and providing stability can Palestinians even begin to address the mental health issues of a generation.
How we reported this story
The Israeli government has prevented foreign journalists from entering Gaza since October 2023, unless they are under tightly controlled military escort. Since then, all imagery from Gaza has been shot by local Palestinian journalists and social media users.
The data sourced from UNICEF that shows damaged and destroyed schools across Gaza does not include the 16 schools where the probability of damage is 'unknown.'