Gaza Metropolis – Early on Saturday morning, Rana Totah held her two sons’ palms as she walked them to highschool in al-Katiba, Gaza Metropolis, watching them return to a routine that they had nearly forgotten.
For Totah, 30, the morning was greater than the primary day of a brand new college yr. It was a return to household life interrupted by practically three years of struggle and displacement after Israel’s genocidal struggle on Gaza started in October 2023.
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Displaced from Gaza Metropolis’s Zeitoun neighbourhood to al-Katiba in western Gaza Metropolis, Totah spent the earlier evening getting ready her youngsters for his or her first day again in face-to-face schooling.
She made certain they slept early the evening earlier than, then woke them, dressed them and introduced them to highschool.
“Truthfully, as we speak was a lovely day for me. It even felt like Eid,” Totah instructed Al Jazeera. “I ready my youngsters, they have been excited they usually went to mattress early. I ready them as if it have been a standard college day.”
The Gaza Municipality college was arrange in about 10 tents within the western Gaza Metropolis neighbourhood as a short lived house for a return to face-to-face schooling. “Generally there could be months once I stopped taking them altogether,” Totah stated.
Through the struggle, together with when the household was in Khan Younis, Totah tried to maintain her 4 youngsters in schooling via casual studying through volunteer-led initiatives. However attendance was irregular, with the hazards of struggle and the wrestle to seek out requirements a precedence for folks, academics and college students. Finally, survival got here earlier than college, and her youngsters took on important duties reminiscent of fetching water, regardless of Totah’s pleas for them to concentrate on studying.
“There have been very tough days. They’d take into consideration issues like, ‘Mum, carry me water,’ or ‘Mum, let me go and get you this.’ And I might inform them, ‘ No, I need to focus in your research.’ Training is the muse of every thing in life.”
A fragile return to studying
The return to face-to-face schooling comes after practically three years of disruption as a consequence of Israel’s genocidal struggle, which has seen nearly all of Gaza’s inhabitants displaced and most buildings within the enclave destroyed.
About 541,000 college students returned to schooling in Gaza when the brand new college yr started on September 19, in accordance with the Palestinian Ministry of Training and Increased Training, which comes after a lower – however not an finish – in violence following the October 2025 ceasefire.
In January, the ministry stated 317,332 college students have been attending face-to-face academic areas, colleges and initiatives in Gaza. One other 120,000 have been enrolled in digital colleges taught by academics from the West Financial institution.
Nevertheless, regardless of the Gaza ceasefire, Israeli bombing has continued, with two students killed earlier this month. Such risks have severely affected the training surroundings and schooling stays severely constrained by struggle and different realities on the bottom.
Almost 98 % of college buildings in Gaza had been broken since October 2023, with greater than 93 % requiring main rehabilitation or full reconstruction, in accordance with UNICEF.
About 700,000 youngsters aged 4 to 17 had missed formal face-to-face education for nearly three consecutive college years, with round 420,000 having no face-to-face studying in any respect.
Inside one tent, Nesma Nahid Abu Asim was educating arithmetic to sixth-grade college students, writing on a whiteboard as youngsters sat on mattresses with notebooks on their laps.
![Gaza’s education system has been severely disrupted as most schools were damaged or destroyed during the war, while many others were turned into shelters for displaced families [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/873A0845-copy-1789885484.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Abu Asim has been a maths instructor since 2010. She labored for the Ministry of Training earlier than the struggle and now teaches via a UNICEF programme supporting schooling in Gaza.
“Throughout this era, schooling has been very tough. There have been main challenges for each dad and mom and academics as we attempt to get the coed to security,” she stated.
“Training is a proper for each pupil … [but] college students arrive with out fundamental stationery or textbooks, whereas tables and chairs are largely unavailable. The coed comes to highschool as we speak in a harmful scenario, in a struggle scenario.”
Resulting from Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza, colleges have reported a extreme lack of stationery, schoolbooks, desks, and chairs. However for Abu Asim, her largest concern is the specter of one other interruption to schooling.
“These situations are tough for the coed, however they don’t seem to be not possible situations. The largest problem is that we cease schooling,” she stated.
“We’ve got taken a very good step and opened the varsity yr. We’re returning to regular life, to schooling. The coed has the suitable to be taught and to take a seat at a faculty desk.”
Now she hopes momentary school rooms will ultimately give solution to safer and extra everlasting areas for Gaza Metropolis’s youngsters.
“I hope the faculties can be emptied of displaced households and returned to those college students. These college students are our youngsters,” she stated. “We can not put 40 college students in a tent. In a classroom, we will have 40 college students.”
As his instructor continues her maths lesson, 11-year-old Osama Alayleh briefly paused to inform Al Jazeera how his first day at school feels. “I’m completely satisfied that I’m again at college,” he stated.
Osama ranked third in his class and hopes to complete the yr in first place, and says his favorite topic is Arabic.
He stated he would moderately be again in a daily college constructing with tables and chairs, moderately than a tent like his dwelling, however is prepared for a brand new college yr with notebooks, books and stationery offered by assist teams.
“However what can we do? It’s OK. The vital factor is that we examine,” he stated. “I’m excited for this college yr. I hope it continues with none issues.”
A college with out desks
Like Osama, many youngsters are nonetheless learning in tents and different momentary studying areas, with cramped situations and restricted sources, UNICEF stated.
It’s removed from a standard college surroundings and this case could be seen at Ahbab Shujayea College, a makeshift college housed in worn-out tents close to Gaza Metropolis’s port space.
College provides, together with fundamental gadgets reminiscent of notebooks and pencils, have been banned from coming into Gaza through the struggle. Whereas some restrictions have been lifted, Palestinian authorities stated simply this month that Israel had prevented a cargo of college luggage and stationery from UNICEF from coming into the enclave.
At this college, there aren’t any desks or chairs, so first and second-grade college students sit crowded collectively on the bottom, utilizing items of cardboard to jot down on. Their instructor, who additionally has little to work with, explains the lesson on a really small board.
The college’s director, Inaam al-Batreekhi, stated this was the most effective they might present the kids, given the circumstances.
“Greater than 300 college students are enrolled at Ahbab Shujayea College, however sadly, they’re college students with out notebooks or stationery,” al-Batreekhi instructed Al Jazeera.
“We will examine as we speak, we will sit on the bottom as we speak. However tomorrow, when the rain comes, we gained’t be capable to.”
![Inaam Al-Batreekhi, director of Ahbab Al-Shuja'iya School in Gaza's port area, says the school has 300 students and urgently needs support to provide basic learning conditions [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/873A1099-copy-1789885478.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
The college serves youngsters from 9 displacement camps across the port, from first to sixth grade. Resulting from safety issues, reminiscent of Israeli shelling from the ocean, the varsity day has been shortened, with lessons operating from 8am to 11am.
“Generally college students come late and inform me, ‘I used to be filling water for my mom,’” al-Batreekhi stated. “These are displaced youngsters. A short time in the past, they have been carrying water and meals. Now they’re right here making an attempt to be taught.”
She runs the varsity voluntarily and her ambition is for lessons to return to a correct constructing.
“I hope we will return to official colleges, to buildings. All of the buildings are gone. All the faculties have turn out to be tents,” she stated. “In earlier wars, we’d miss college for a month or two, then return and discover our faculty because it was. We might clear it, organise it and return to learning. Now, returning to colleges like that’s nearly not possible within the blink of a watch.”
For now, al-Batreekhi says the precedence is to make this momentary college as snug as doable for the kids.
“I hope the scenario on the college and for the scholars will enhance, and that we will get the help we have to enhance their studying situations,” she stated.
“Even having chairs and desks would make a distinction. These are youngsters in first and second grade, and they’re simply starting their schooling. They need to have the fundamental situations to be taught.”
