By Mohammed Majed
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - At least 800,000 students have been deprived of an education as Israel’s months-long offensive against the Gaza Strip continues, the Gaza Media Office said Saturday.
The Office said, according to a statement by the Ministry of Education in Gaza, “more than 800,000 students of various educational levels in the Gaza Strip have been deprived of their right to education since Oct. 7 last year, due to the genocidal war being waged by the criminal Zionist occupation on the Gaza Strip.”
Among them: “40,000 high school students from various branches will not be able to participate in this year’s session of the high school exams, representing an unprecedented violation that threatens their future and undermines their chances of enrolling in local and international universities and colleges,” the Office added.
Early Saturday, 50,000 students went to final high school exam halls, "Tawjihi," in West Bank governorates and Palestinian schools abroad, while the Israeli onslaught prevented students in Gaza from taking the exams.
The Gaza Media Office said that “85% of educational facilities are out of service due to direct and deliberate targeting, posing a significant challenge to efforts to resume the educational process after the war ends."
“Plans have been put in place to make up for the academic year for students from the first (elementary) grade to the eleventh grade and higher education students, ensuring that the academic year is not lost and that they possess the essential concepts and skills necessary for their continued learning,” said the Office.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
More than 37,500 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 86,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.
More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala