The education sector in the Gaza Strip is being subjected to systematic destruction by the Israeli occupation army as part of a policy aimed at obliterating the features of educational life and depriving Palestinians of their natural right to education and development.
Such attacks violate all international norms and conventions.
Since the resumption of the recent aggression on the Gaza Strip, the occupation has deliberately assassinated a number of educational leaders, including Dr Rashid Abu Jahjouh, director general of the Ministry of Education, Manar Abu Khater, director of education in the East Khan Yunis Directorate and Jihad Al-Agha, educational supervisor in the same directorate.
Furthermore, a number of teachers have been killed, reflecting a clear intent to disrupt both the administrative and educational work and destabilise the education sector’s organisational structure.
An official source in the Ministry of Education told Al-Resalah Net that statistics show that approximately 800 education staff members, including employees of the Ministry of Education and those working in its seven directorates, have been killed, in addition to more than 150 academics from universities and colleges. This confirms that the aggression targets all aspects of the educational process, from school to higher education.
In the same context, the official confirmed that approximately 90 per cent of schools in the Gaza Strip were completely or partially destroyed, completely disrupting the educational process and causing hundreds of thousands of students to lose an entire academic year. This poses an educational and humanitarian disaster that threatens the future of an entire generation of Palestinian children and youth.
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