Karim al-Masri is scheduled to begin his final exams on Saturday morning, just weeks away from graduation. Instead, he spent the morning filling water bags to freeze into ice and sell it to feed his family.
“I should have studied and prepared for my final exam,” said 18-year-old al-Masri. But after more than eight months of war, “I had to spend all day working to provide for my family. situation.”
Mr. al-Masri is one of nearly 39,000 students in Gaza According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, they cannot take the final high school exams scheduled to begin on Saturday across the Palestinian territories and in Jordan, and those who do will not be able to graduate.
War exists Gaza’s education system is devastated which has been in trouble after multiple wars and escalations since 2008. According to UNRWA, the United Nations agency assisting the Palestinians, at least 625,000 children are out of school in Gaza. school year.
According to UNRWA, which operates many schools in the Gaza Strip, more than 76% of Gaza schools will need major reconstruction or rehabilitation to function properly after Israel’s months-long offensive. The majority of these schools are used as shelters for many displaced families in Gaza, most of whom are living in miserable conditions.
Mr. al-Masri said he dreamed of studying information technology at the Islamic University of Gaza or the University of Applied Sciences – both of which were destroyed by Israeli bombing. All Gaza’s 12 universities According to the United Nations, has been heavily damaged or destroyed by fighting.
Instead of pinning his hopes on returning to school and graduating, he said the war changed his priorities and he is now focused on working to continue supporting his family. While selling stones in the town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Mr. al-Masri said he often passes by his school, where “classrooms have turned into shelters” and when he looks inside, he “full of pain. ”
Islam al-Najjar, 18, who is also expected to take her first final exam on Saturday, said that her school is in Deir al Balah, where many Gazans have fled from Rafah’s offensive. Israel, too, has been turned into a refuge.
“I couldn’t imagine turning back and seeing my school, where we studied, turned into a shelter full of displaced people living in miserable conditions,” she said.
“When we come back, we won’t see all the same faces,” she said, referring to her classmate, two teachers and principal who were killed in the war.
Ms. al-Najjar remains hopeful about the possibility of returning to school and graduating. She said that despite the “many obstacles to everything you want to achieve in Gaza,” she still dreams of studying abroad and has set her sights on going to Harvard University or Oxford University to study business.
“I am very excited for my final year of school and the start of a new”. “But of course, the war ended everything.”
“Why does the spring of our lives coincide with the collapse of our country?” Ms. al-Najjar said. “Is it our fault that we dare to dream?”
Abu Bakr Bashir Contributed reporting from London.
