Here are the children of Gaza, who despite everything continue to study; they want to learn, in makeshift classrooms, without desks, without chairs, without notebooks, without anything, just with a great desire to learn. And here are the teachers, who continue to motivate their students, even when bombs are falling all around.
“My students sit on the frozen ground, shivering from the cold, because they have nowhere else to go. Education is a human right. We cannot let them steal it from us,” said teacher Munira Elnajar, hopeful during the ceasefire.
A few days ago, Israeli airstrikes directly hit a school, causing dozens and dozens of casualties, primarily among children.
They struck the Dar Al-Arqam school, crowded with displaced people, in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza. Israel claimed it was a Hamas military command center in Gaza. Yet another atrocious massacre.
In recent days, over a thousand people have been killed by Israeli attacks, mostly children and women, as the UN has also reported. Gaza has now become a death trap.
The humanitarian crisis is spiraling out of control after the end of the truce between Israel and Hamas and the blockade of aid. All bakeries supported by the World Food Programme have been closed, markets are reduced to
rubble, rescue teams and ambulances are being targeted, and people are being denied any form of humanitarian assistance.
In his daily press briefing, United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric stated that large-scale Israeli bombardments and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and the displacement of over 100,000 Palestinians from Rafah in the last two days alone.
Before the war, the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on the border between Egypt and Palestine, was home to more than 170,000 people. Now the city is completely destroyed by the Israeli occupying army, an indescribable devastation, ‘as if an earthquake had struck the beautiful city,’ says Hazem
Helme Abu Anza.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his concern over Israeli policy that calls on the army to ‘capture a vast territory that will be added to the security areas of the State of Israel’. The Secretary-General recalls that ‘Security Council resolution 2735 (2024) rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza.’
Now in Gaza, ‘even the ruins have become a target,’ noted Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA-the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, reporting on Wednesday that Israeli forces bombed one of its buildings in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, which had already been
severely damaged. The facility housed more than 700 people when it was bombed, displaced families who had nowhere else to shelter: among the victims are said to be nine children, including a two-week-old baby.
‘The total disregard for UN personnel, premises or operations is a serious challenge to international law,’ he stated.
‘What is happening here defies decency, defies humanity, defies law,’ he said. ‘It is truly a war without limits,’ declared Jonathan Whittall, Head of Humanitarian Affairs at OCHA – the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – ‘We cannot accept that Palestinian civilians are dehumanized to the point where they are somehow unworthy of survival.’
Despite the destruction, Whittall pointed out that Palestinians continue to hope: ‘In Gaza, hope is the last to die,’ he said, urging nations to respect international laws and to insist on reaching an armistice.
But it seems that these appeals from United Nations representatives are falling on deaf ears, and we continue to witness helplessly the end of Gaza.
