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CAIRO – Returning to a new school year after a 50-day hefty war, traumatized Gaza children have found empty chairs of hundreds of their friends who were either killed or forced to leave their homes to escape Israeli continuous shelling.
“In Gaza, conflict has profoundly affected the traditional learning environment and delayed the academic year for almost three weeks,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said in a statement obtained by Onislam.net on Sunday, September 14.
“But after the traumatic 50 days of brutal conflict, of death, destruction and massive displacement, including to many of our schools, we are determined to give the children a sense of renewed hope and better prospects by opening the schools so soon again.”
Dust Bucket Challenge for Gaza
Israel Blows Gaza Children Education Dream
Nearly 500,000 Palestinian students returned to schools on Sunday, September 14, after a three-week delay over the mass destruction caused by this summer’s Israeli war on the besieged strip and using schools as shelters for refugees.
Missing their colleagues, Gaza students could not feel excited while going to school with scores of students either killed or wounded by Israeli shelling.
In a bid to offer help to Gaza students, UN aid organizations will be working with local authorities and NGOs to offer psychological counseling for the war-weary Gaza children.
“The top priority now is making sure that after a period of psychosocial support, including the use of theater for development techniques, our students can return to their regular curricula,” Krähenbühl said.
More than 200 UNRWA counselors will be hired to offer support for more than 240,000 Palestinian students in 252 UNRWA schools.
Others students at Gaza’s public schools will be offered counseling from a coalition of international and local non-government agencies along with the Palestinian Education Ministry.
Symbolic Honor
A symbolic honor for students killed in the war was made at schools by placing a sign of the martyr’s name on his empty desk.
“Martyr Ghalya Al-Helu, ninth grade,” read one sign placed on an empty chair at a girls’ school in Shejaia, a Gaza neighborhood where hundreds of houses were destroyed and more than 72 people died in the war.
During the Israeli war on Gaza, more than 250 schools have been damaged, with 22 totally destroyed and cannot be used any more, according to the UNICEF.
Up to date, UNRWA estimates that about 64,000 internally displaced Palestinians are still sheltering in 20 Gaza schools.
Israel has launched relentless airstrikes against Gaza on July 8 where more than 2,100 have been killed and thousands injured.
Out of 2,131 Palestinians who died in the latest fighting, 501 were children, said the United Nations.
About 70 percent of the children killed were under 12, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF.
The large scale of mass destruction in Gaza has left about 5,510 homes completely destroyed and about 31,000 partially damaged, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes that were caught up in the Israeli air strikes.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said that the Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip, including those on UN schools, have caused numerous civilian casualties in violation of the laws of war and even amount to “war crimes”.
