Gaza: With a suitcase for a school bag, classrooms have become hiding places

“We wear a bag of clothing instead of a school bag,” she said One news.

Diana and other students shared their eagerness to come back to class, speaking of schools that have been converted into hiding places for Gaza displaced people, where most of the 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants are forced to move several times during the almost two-year war that was raised by the Hamas-led terrores and Israëls.

Almost 660,000 children stay from school, according to the UN agency for Palestine Refugees, URRA. In one Nerrente School Corridor now turned into busy living spaces, Diana explained her test.

“We don’t play or learn anymore,” said Diana, a child who is displaced with her family from the Shujaiya district in Gaza City. “There is no training now. We live in the school, where we are displaced, eat and sleep.”

Looking for food instead of school supplies

Misk lost her father during the war. She said her tragedy was worse by the loss of learning.

“Two years of our lives were wasted,” she said. “If I had not been before the war, I would now prepare for school, buying pens and school supplies. Now we are looking for water and food, running after water and community kitchens.”

She fought against the tears while she continued.

“We are children,” she said. “We want to live as other children. My father was killed in the war. What is my fault that I became an orphan at a young age? What is my fault that I was from my family and so taken away?”

‘We were learning and getting diplomas’

Nine -year -old Jana said she wants to study again.

“We live in a school and we want to study again,” she said. “We are displaced because of the war and now there is no food or drink.”

Maya said life before the war “much nicer”.

“Children went to school, learned and received their diplomas,” she said.

Instead of concentrating on her homework, Malak looks for plastic and cardboard to use as fire starters for cooking. She hopes that the war will end so that she can return to school.

“We want the war to end,” she said. “We want to go home. We want to go back to school. We want to do something useful. It has been so long ago that we have eaten healthy food. We want to go home and lead a normal life. This is not a life.”

Education

Unrwa, Founded in 1949 To serve Palestinian refugees, warned that students as students were taken away from education, they run the risk of becoming “A lost generation”.

“The war in Gaza is a war to children and must stop. Children must be protected at all times,” said the UN agency in a statement and noted that “nearly a million children suffer from deeply psychological trauma.”

More than 90 percent of Gaza schools have been destroyed or seriously damaged. Repairing and reconstructing them will take them according to a recent considerable means and take time A delay.

West Bank: lessons are quiet in Jenin Camp

About 46,000 Palestinian refugee children will also start a new school year in UNRWA schools in the West Bank.

The schools remain a safe haven for children and offer them quality education and support them in the midst of escalating violence and displacement, said Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA cases on the West Bank.

“This time last year I opened the school year with children in Jenin Camp,” he said.

“Now these students are displaced with violence from their houses and UNRWA schools in the camp are silent.”

Of the more than 30,000 Palestinians that are displaced in the northwestern Jordoever, more than a third children of the camps Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams are.

“In Oost -Jerusalem, UNRWA has prevented from opening six schools for the first time in our history after they violently closed by the Israeli authorities who meet around 800 children,” he said.

“Only some of these students have been able to register for other schools.”

Violation of the law of children to education

Mr Friedrich warned that this not only violates the right to education for Palestine refugee children, but also the obligations of Israel as the United Nations Member State is contrary to education.

Anyway, UNRWA remains the second largest supplier of education in the West Bank after the Palestinian authority, which reaches students through schools, training centers and hybrid learning modalities.

“This back-to-school season we are proud of our students and teachers who continue to show resilience in the light of deprivation,” he said. “We wish all children a school year full of excitement for learning, friendships and curiosity.”