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Gaza children return to classrooms after three years, facing challenges of damaged schools, tents, and scarce supplies.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoPalestinian students attend their first day of the new school year inside a tent classroom at a school in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]By Al Jazeera, AP and ReutersPublished On 21 Sep 202621 Sep 2026Hundreds of thousands of children returned to in-person classes in Gaza on Saturday for the first time in nearly three years, filing into damaged school buildings, makeshift classrooms and tents amid a severe shortage of basic supplies.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 98 percent of schools in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or damaged during Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave, while local education officials estimate about 660,000 students have been deprived of regular, in-person learning.
The reopening is a fragile milestone in a territory where about 22,000 students and more than 770 education workers, including 532 teachers, have been killed, according to Ibrahim Ramadan, director of education for eastern Khan Younis.
“The last time I have been to school was three years ago,” said student Moayed Abu Mustafa in Khan Younis. “Now, we are starting the school year; it is year of joy, happiness and success. Despite all of this, we will learn, we will learn even in a tent.”
Moayed has no proper shoes, notebook or pen, and will sit on the floor in a sweltering tent.
Across Gaza, the Ministry of Education, backed by aid agencies, has set up dozens of temporary schools from tarpaulins, sheet metal and wood. Some classrooms consist of a few mattresses and a blackboard; others still shelter displaced families.
“We studied on phones, and we haven’t seen our teachers. Now, we are back pursuing our dream … from one tent to another,” said 15-year-old Samar Abu Salmi, who lives in a tent with her family and can no longer afford school supplies that were cheap before the war.
Stationery trader Khaled Aliyan said Israeli import restrictions have driven prices up fivefold. “All stationery items are expensive,” he said.
Israeli forces still control more than 60 percent of Gaza despite an October 2025 “ceasefire” that halted large-scale fighting but left the underlying conflict unresolved.
