two students killed<\/a> earlier this month. Such dangers have severely affected the learning environment and education remains severely constrained by war and other realities on the ground.<\/p>\nNearly 98 percent of school buildings in Gaza had been damaged since October 2023, with more than 93 percent requiring major rehabilitation or full reconstruction, according to UNICEF.<\/p>\n
About 700,000 children aged four to 17 had missed formal face-to-face schooling for almost three consecutive school years, with around 420,000 having no face-to-face learning at all.<\/p>\n
Inside one tent, Nesma Nahid Abu Asim was teaching mathematics to sixth-grade students, writing on a whiteboard as children sat on mattresses with notebooks on their laps.<\/p>\n
![\"Gaza\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/873A0845-copy-1789885484.jpg\")
Gaza\u2019s 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]<\/p>\n
Abu Asim has been a maths teacher since 2010. She worked for the Ministry of Education before the war and now teaches through a UNICEF programme supporting education in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring this period, education has been very difficult. There have been major challenges for both parents and teachers as we try to get the student to safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation is a right for every student \u2026 [but] students arrive without basic stationery or textbooks, while tables and chairs are largely unavailable. The student comes to school today in a dangerous situation, in a war situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to Israel\u2019s ongoing siege on Gaza, schools have reported a severe lack of stationery, schoolbooks, desks, and chairs. But for Abu Asim, her biggest concern is the threat of another interruption to education.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese conditions are difficult for the student, but they are not impossible conditions. The biggest difficulty is that we stop education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have taken a good step and opened the school year. We are returning to normal life, to education. The student has the right to learn and to sit at a school desk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now she hopes temporary classrooms will eventually give way to safer and more permanent spaces for Gaza City\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the schools will be emptied of displaced families and returned to these students. These students are our children,\u201d she said. \u201cWe cannot put 40 students in a tent. In a classroom, we can have 40 students.\u201d<\/p>\n
As his teacher continues her maths lesson, 11-year-old Osama Alayleh briefly paused to tell Al Jazeera how his first day in class feels. \u201cI\u2019m happy that I\u2019m back at school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Osama ranked third in his class and hopes to finish the year in first place, and says his favourite subject is Arabic.<\/p>\n
He said he would rather be back in a regular school building with tables and chairs, rather than a tent like his home, but is ready for a new school year with notebooks, books and stationery provided by aid groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what can we do? It\u2019s OK. The important thing is that we study,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m excited for this school year. I hope it continues without any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
A school without desks<\/p>\n
Like Osama, many children are still studying in tents and other temporary learning spaces, with cramped conditions and limited resources, UNICEF said.<\/p>\n
It is far from a normal school environment and this situation can be seen at Ahbab Shujayea School, a makeshift school housed in worn-out tents near Gaza City\u2019s port area.<\/p>\n
School supplies, including basic items such as notebooks and pencils, have been banned from entering Gaza during the war. While some restrictions have been lifted, Palestinian authorities said just this month that Israel had prevented a shipment of school bags and stationery from UNICEF from entering the enclave.<\/p>\n
At this school, there are no desks or chairs, so first and second-grade students sit crowded together on the ground, using pieces of cardboard to write on. Their teacher, who also has little to work with, explains the lesson on a very small board.<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s director, Inaam al-Batreekhi, said this was the best they could provide the children, given the circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 300 students are enrolled at Ahbab Shujayea School, but unfortunately, they are students without notebooks or stationery,\u201d al-Batreekhi told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can study today, we can sit on the ground today. But tomorrow, when the rain comes, we won\u2019t be able to.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Inaam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/873A1099-copy-1789885478.jpg\")
Inaam al-Batreekhi, director of Ahbab Shujayea School in Gaza\u2019s port area, says the school has 300 students and urgently needs support for basic learning conditions [Abdelhakim Abu Riash\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
The school serves children from nine displacement camps around the port, from first to sixth grade. Due to security concerns, such as Israeli shelling from the sea, the school day has been shortened, with classes running from 8am to 11am.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes students come late and tell me, \u2018I was filling water for my mother,\u2019\u201d al-Batreekhi said. \u201cThese are displaced children. A short while ago, they were carrying water and food. Now they are here trying to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
She runs the school voluntarily and her ambition is for classes to return to a proper building.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we can return to official schools, to buildings. All the buildings are gone. All the schools have become tents,\u201d she said. \u201cIn previous wars, we would miss school for a month or two, then return and find our school as it was. We would clean it, organise it and go back to studying. Now, returning to schools like that is almost impossible in the blink of an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, al-Batreekhi says the priority is to make this temporary school as comfortable as possible for the children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the situation at the school and for the students will improve, and that we can get the support we need to improve their learning conditions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven having chairs and desks would make a difference. These are children in first and second grade, and they are just beginning their education. They deserve to have the basic conditions to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gaza City \u2013 Early on Saturday morning, Rana Totah held her two sons\u2019 hands as she walked them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[243,2664,50,42,2128,4426,47,43,6803,48,40,38,41,39,23699],"class_list":["post-621920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-education","tag-features","tag-gaza","tag-headlines","tag-humanitarian-crises","tag-infrastructure","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-news-analysis","tag-palestine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-unicef"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Around](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/873A0634-copy-1789885519.jpg\")
These Palestinian children have returned to their studies in a tent with few basic supplies. Educational resources are scarce across Gaza [Abdelhakim Abu Riash\/Al Jazeera]A fragile return to learning<\/p>\n