Since 2015, Action Against Hunger has supported more than 60 schools in the West Bank, including daycare centers, to protect children and enable them to stay in their communities.
Palestinian children living in the West Bank have been struggling to go to school since well before October 2023. According to external sources, in 2023, 5,870 children from 117 communities in the West Bank were unable to attend primary school and 4,599 Other children have had difficulty accessing education due to movement restrictions, security checks and the harassment, intimidation and violence they continue to experience on their way to school.
Since October 7, 2023, violence has significantly intensified: Israeli forces and settlers have killed 358 Palestinians, including 91 children, in the West Bank according to OCHA. Access to education has been seriously hampered, as evidenced by the burning and subsequent demolition by settlers of two classrooms in a school supported by Action Against Hunger partner organizations in Khirbet Zanuta, at the end of 2023 A few weeks later, the population of neighboring communities was forced to move and were rehoused, so their children were no longer able to benefit from access to education.
Before the escalation of the conflict, the right to education was limited in Gaza. The lack of construction materials made it impossible to build new educational infrastructures or repair those damaged by previous waves of hostilities. Additionally, schools in Gaza were often closed to provide emergency shelter for displaced people.
Today, the right to education no longer exists in Gaza. Since October 7, 2023, more than 625,000 students and 22,564 teachers in Gaza have no longer had access to education, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Additionally, 76% of Gaza’s schools are damaged or destroyed, while 264 are used as shelters for 1.4 million internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Education Group.
These unprecedented levels of violence have exposed children of all ages to death, amputations, hunger, disease and extremely traumatic events such as the loss of loved ones. According to the Education Group, as of January 23, 4,510 students and 231 teachers had been killed in Gaza.
2024-01-25 01:28:36
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