What Israel was really targeting when it wiped out Gaza's schools

Gaza is the most dangerous place on Earth for a child.

In the two years since the war began inside the Strip, 64,000 children have been killed or maimed, according to Unicef. Tens of thousands have been injured and amputated. An entire generation is traumatised. And one of the most grievous crimes is that those who managed to survive have been deprived of an education.

According to the humanitarian information portal ReliefWeb, satellite-based assessments by the Education Cluster/UNRWA show that about 97 per cent of schools sustained damage, and 76.6 per cent of all school buildings were “direct hits” since October 7, 2023. Human Rights Watch reported that “hundreds of strikes on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians killed large numbers of civilians”. These strikes have been called unlawful; even so, Israel has continued to target schools, libraries and universities.

Education is a human right, along with the rights to life, liberty and security of person. Under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law, the education of children – even during armed conflict – must be protected.

There is overwhelming evidence showing that Gaza’s schools have been hit on an extraordinary scale: 660,000 children have been out of school for nearly three years. Nearly 400 schools have been destroyed. More than 800 teachers and staff have been killed. Thousands more are displaced, injured, or buried under rubble.

Universities are crushed: 12 of Gaza’s higher learning institutions have been destroyed, leaving students stranded. Books, papers and research are burnt and lost. Unesco says that 88,000 higher education students were forced to put their studies on hold. Coding academies like Gaza Sky Geeks, which I last visited in 2022, are now rubble.

Even before October 7, 2023, the blockade imposed on the enclave since 2007 was devastating. Teaching materials and computer parts were often not allowed to pass through checkpoints. Students invited to conferences, workshops or to study abroad were prohibited from leaving the Strip. I heard case after painful case of brilliant students who won exclusive scholarships in the UK or Europe – or coveted places at American Ivy League universities – but who were refused permits to travel to Jerusalem to obtain the visas they needed to enter their new host country.

Despite Israel’s attempts to limit Gaza’s development, it had one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. In 2011, Unesco data pointed to a literacy rate of nearly 96 per cent. I was always surprised by the level of English my colleagues and friends in Gaza had mastered – without once having ever left the Strip, and even though it was never their first language. They watched YouTube, they mastered Duolingo, they devoured the books or magazines we brought inside; they read anything they could online. I have never seen a people so hungry for knowledge.

UNRWA, which administered many of the schools, has been demonised by Israel with unfounded claims that the organisation was linked to Hamas. With their facilities crippled, UN agencies like Unicef and other NGOs have stepped in to set up emergency schools since the war began. But constant bombing – even during ceasefires – along with the lack of materials and the cold or rain seeping into makeshift tents have made education nearly impossible. And while a ceasefire may stop the bombs, it cannot bring back children’s education, clean water or food.

Part of Israel’s destruction of Gaza is not just about levelling buildings where it claims Hamas is hiding. Targeting universities, schools and libraries ensures that the next generation is not educated. Otherwise, I see no reason for destroying institutions like the Edward Said Library, named after the great Palestinian-American literary scholar and cultural critic.

Run by the award-winning Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha, the library was a haven of peace, a wonderful place. Mosab began collecting books in 2014, in the wake of another war, to create the first English-language library in Gaza. A branch was first opened in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Strip (an area now destroyed) and later in Gaza city.

“I founded it as a cultural project,” Mosab once told me. “An attempt at blending identity, culture, and literature.” English books were hard to come by because of the blockade; still the library had an impressive collection. It filled a very specific and much-needed gap.

My visits to the library were overwhelmingly joyful. Children practised English, played instruments and made art. Row upon row of books, lovingly gathered by Mr Mosab – a graduate of Syracuse University in the US – were handled carefully by students and locals who came to sit, to read, to dream. But Mr Mosab, who was arrested early in the war by Israelis and later got to the US, recently wrote that the library, a place of hope and vision, is “now gone”.

Libraries, like universities and schools, are the ecosystem of knowledge. One of the most horrifying moments in the war in Sarajevo – and there were many – was when the Bosnian Serbs deliberately targeted the National Library. It was not just an attempt to destroy the city; seeing those ancient Ottoman manuscripts burst into flames was an attempt to eradicate identity and culture.

Even those Gazans who managed to cross into Egypt during the worst of the bombing are thwarted. Many do not have their children’s educational records, which were destroyed in bombing raids. And those children who remain will need extended psycho-social counselling to begin to feel safe again.

When I go through my memories of Gaza before the war, I always come back to images of graduation day at the Islamic University – the joy and wonder of newly graduated doctors, dentists, scientists and teachers receiving their degrees despite enormous challenges and the destructive blockade.

I think of the children in classrooms throughout the Strip, eager to talk to me and learn of a life outside the Strip. I think of the poets, the artists, the singers, the actors – all of whom were born, bred and proudly educated in Gaza. Where are they now? Are they alive or dead?

For them, and for all the children of Gaza, we must rebuild Gaza – but first we must first rebuild its schools.