For the first time ever, the Palestinian high school leaving exams – the tawjihi – are being limited to the occupied West Bank and not being held in Gaza.

Some 39,000 students in Gaza are being prevented from taking the exams during a school year that is considered essential in the education system. Sitting the tawjihi is a prerequisite for going to university.

Education has been disrupted in many other ways.

Students in schools and universities across Gaza have been deprived of a full academic year. Life has been put on hold.

Schools are not functioning as schools but as shelters for displaced people.

Theoretically schools enjoy protection under international law. Yet Israel has damaged or destroyed most of Gaza’s schools.

The soldier took a souvenir photo in front of the books as they went up in flames.

Almost 400 staff working in the education sector have been killed since the current war was declared.

Teachers and intellectuals have been deliberately attacked in air raids without any warning.

Denying necessities

I even heard from an eyewitness that the Israeli occupation stormed the campus of al-Aqsa University in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, with tanks and encouraged looting of the university’s assets.

The witness told me how an Israeli soldier used a loudspeaker to convey a message from inside a tank.

“Come on, thieves, you have until 4 o’clock to finish your work,” the soldier said.

The witness told me how a telescope and other high-tech equipment was stolen from the university and then sold on the streets at a low price.

That scene was replicated when the Khan Younis branch of the Islamic University of Gaza was stormed. Occupation forces demolished the university’s outer fence and then gave sufficient time for thieves – arriving in animal-drawn carts – to steal all its contents.

Drones and quadcopters monitored the scene and provided cover for the thieves as the looting took place.

The denial of the right to education, the destruction of universities and schools and the targeting of teachers and intellectuals gives a shocking indication of Israel’s real goal in this genocidal war. The real goal is to deprive Palestinian society of life’s necessities.

After the loss of almost an entire school year, there is no end in sight to this terrifying reality.

Even if Israel’s major military operations come to a halt, the destruction of schools, cities and life’s requirements have made the restoration of Gaza’s educational system a distant prospect. This means that the right to education could be under threat for generations.

Thousands of children have been killed. Thousands more have been orphaned.

For nine months, Gaza’s children have been living in severe fear. All have been traumatized by the continuous Israeli bombing and the horrific scenes of death and destruction.

Add to that, the reality of being displaced. Most people in Gaza have lost their homes and been forced to live in shelters or tents, lacking life’s most basic necessities.

There is no electricity, no clean drinking water, no sense of security. Health care is being denied, too.

Children are being starved due to the tight siege being enforced by Israel’s colonial regime.

In an abnormal atmosphere, vast numbers of children are forced to take on adult tasks. They have to fill water containers or wait in long lines for a coupon or some bread.

Many children are now working in the streets, selling anything they can find, in an attempt to help their families cope with these catastrophic conditions.

These conditions are the very opposite of what children need for healthy physical and mental development. All children see around them is violence and a struggle to survive.

At a time when children around the world are about to begin summer vacations, children in Gaza are being denied the most basic human rights. We can only imagine what future awaits our children.

Ahmed Abu Artema is a Palestinian writer, activist and refugee from Ramle.

Tags

• Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
• eiGazaDispatches
• Al-Aqsa University
• Islamic University of Gaza

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