Karim al-Masri was due to start his final exams on Saturday morning, just weeks before he graduated. Instead, he spent his morning filling bags with water to freeze into ice, which he sold to support his family.
“I should have studied and prepared for my final exams,” said Mr al-Masri, 18. condition.”
Mr. al-Masri was one of nearly 39,000 students in Gaza who were unable to take their high school final exams scheduled to begin Saturday in the Palestinian territories and Jordan and who would not be able to graduate, according to Palestinian Education. Ministry.
The war has devastated Gaza’s education system, which was already struggling after multiple wars and escalation since 2008. At least 625,000 children are missing out on education in Gaza, according to UNRWA, the UN agency that helps Palestinians, with schools closed since the start of the war in October, just a month into the school year.
More than 76 percent of schools in Gaza would need rebuilding or major rehabilitation to function after Israel’s months-long offensive, according to UNRWA, which operates many schools in the Gaza Strip. Most of these schools have been used as shelters to house the many displaced families in Gaza, most of whom live in squalid conditions.
Mr al-Masri said he dreamed of studying information technology at the Islamic University of Gaza or the University College of Applied Sciences — both of which have been destroyed by Israeli bombing. All 12 Gaza universities have been severely damaged or destroyed by the fighting, according to the United Nations.
Instead of pinning his hopes on going back to school and graduating, he said the war changed his priorities and he was now focused on working to continue supporting his family. While selling ice in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, Mr al-Masri said he often walked past his school, where “classrooms have been turned into shelters” and when he peeked inside, “it fills me with anxiety. “
Islam al-Najjar, 18, who was also supposed to take her first final exam on Saturday, said her school in Deir al Balah, where many Gazans have fled since Israel’s assault on Rafah, it had also been turned into a shelter.
“I can’t imagine going back to see my school, a place where we learn, turned into a shelter full of displaced people living in squalid conditions,” he said.
“When we come back, we won’t see all the same faces,” she said, referring to her classmate, two teachers and her principal who had been killed during the war.
Ms. al-Najjar remains hopeful that she will be able to return to school and graduate. Despite “a lot of obstacles to everything you want to achieve in Gaza,” she said, she dreams of studying abroad and has set her sights on Harvard University or Oxford University to study business.
“I was very excited about my last year of school and starting a new chapter,” said Ms al-Najjar, the eldest in her family, who was planning her graduation celebrations before the war began. “But of course, the war stopped everything.”
“Why does the spring of our life coincide with the fall of our country?” said Ms al-Najjar. “Is it our fault that we dared to dream?”
Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting from London.
