UNRWA: 300,000 students in Gaza have been out of school for 9 months

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced yesterday that nearly 300,000 UNRWA students in the Gaza Strip have been out of school for nine months.

In a post on X, the humanitarian organisation added: “Education is fundamental for UNRWA: with over 700 schools across the region, the Agency reaches hundreds of thousands students.”

It noted that its teams “continue to offer psychosocial support to the children.”

Israel has now demolished all universities in the Gaza Strip and targeted a number of UNRWA and other schools in the enclave. UNRWA schools became shelters in which Palestinians took refuge after Israel launched its brutal bombing campaign in October. Sounding the alarm yesterday, UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, said: “Since the beginning of the war, over 50 per cent of UNRWA installations have been hit or damaged.”

“We have lost nearly 200 staff members and, just this week, witnessed another tragic attack on an UNRWA school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians,” he noted.

For two consecutive days, Israel has raided schools sheltering displaced families, killing at least 10 people.

READ: UNRWA calls for ‘independent investigation’ into Gaza school bombing