Tents and shelters become classrooms as Gaza children return to learning

livemint.com:

For many students across the Middle East, early September brings the buzzing return of children to classrooms. In the war-torn Gaza Strip this year, it marks nearly a full year without education. As a new school year formally begins this week, some educators are trying to find ways to create new teaching centers in the Palestinian enclave—be it in tents, around bombed out buildings or in small open spaces around shelters.

More than 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has ravaged much of the enclave and destroyed critical infrastructure, including education centers, which otherwise would be hosting many of the roughly one million Gazans under 18. Every school in Gaza remains closed, according to the United Nations. Many school compounds in Gaza are currently being used to shelter the nearly two million Palestinians displaced by the war.

Finding it difficult to acquire a safe space to teach children, Wafaa Ali, who used to run a preschool in Gaza City before the war, decided to open two classrooms in her own house. Now, dozens of children huddle in the small rooms of her Gaza City home to learn Arabic, English and math. “Families wanted their children to learn how to read and write instead of wasting time at home, especially since war is not ending anytime soon," Ali said.

Individual educators like Ali can only reach a small percentage of the children who have been deprived of an education due to the war, which started after militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7., leaving 1,200 dead and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. In response, Israel launched a military operation against Hamas in Gaza that has destroyed swaths of the besieged enclave and has killed more