Tents and shelters become classrooms as Gaza children return to learning

As a new school year formally begins this week, some educators are trying to find ways to create new teaching centers in the Palestinian enclave—be it in tents, around bombed out buildings or in small open spaces around shelters.

More than 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has ravaged much of the enclave and destroyed critical infrastructure, including education centers, which otherwise would be hosting many of the roughly one million Gazans under 18. Every school in Gaza remains closed, according to the United Nations. Many school compounds in Gaza are currently being used to shelter the nearly two million Palestinians displaced by the war.

Finding it difficult to acquire a safe space to teach children, Wafaa Ali, who used to run a preschool in Gaza City before the war, decided to open two classrooms in her own house. Now, dozens of children huddle in the small rooms of her Gaza City home to learn Arabic, English and math.

“Families wanted their children to learn how to read and write instead of wasting time at home, especially since war is not ending anytime soon," Ali said.

Individual educators like Ali can only reach a small percentage of the children who have been deprived of an education due to the war, which started after militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7., leaving 1,200 dead and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. In response, Israel launched a military operation against Hamas in Gaza that has destroyed swaths of the besieged enclave and has killed more than 41,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Alaa Junaina, who is sheltering in a tent in the central part of the Gaza Strip, said her 4-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter are taking classes in a nearby tent. The children are learning using materials one grade behind their age because of lost learning.

Junaina, 33, said she recently visited the tent school. “It made me sad. They don’t have clothes, bags or shoes," she said. “But we are trying our best."

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the largest humanitarian group operating in Gaza which also runs dozens of schools there, says more than two thirds of its schools have been destroyed or damaged since the war began. Hundreds of displaced Palestinians sheltering at Unrwa facilities—most of which were schools—have been killed, according to the agency.

Israel says its strikes on schools and Unrwa shelters have targeted militants using the facilities.

Unrwa said it is launching a back-to-learning program that will bring about 28,000 children to dozens of schools. The program will first focus on psychological support, art, sports and the risks of explosive ordnance, and then will delve into reading, writing and math.

“Too many schools are no place for learning. They have become places of despair, hunger, disease & death," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of Unrwa, said Wednesday on social media. “The longer children stay out of school in the rubble of a devastated land, the higher the risk for them to become a lost generation. This is a recipe for future resentment & extremism."

Israel’s nearly yearlong military campaign in Gaza has also devastated transportation, health, aid and sanitation infrastructure.

An emergency polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip continued this week, with more than three quarters of children needing the vaccine receiving the first dose, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The campaign began earlier this month, with temporary and localized pauses in fighting, after the dangerous virus—eradicated in most of the world—was detected in sewage samples and a case of infection was confirmed amid unsanitary conditions caused by the destruction of water and sewage systems.