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Inside a crowded tent settlement in Deir el-Balah, Khadija Abu Qados begins her morning routine by getting her 11-year-old daughter, Jouri, ready for classes. The daily effort unfolds against a backdrop of persistent Israeli aerial bombardments and severe economic hardship that have reshaped every facet of life across the central Gaza Strip.
The family was forced to seek shelter in the central region after their home in northern Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood was destroyed during the military offensive in Gaza City last September. Like their current living quarters, the classrooms that Jouri and her 14-year-old sister, Ritaj, now attend at Elyaa' School consist entirely of fabric tents pitched on bare ground.
These makeshift educational spaces lack basic furniture and climate control. Because there are hardly any desks or chairs available, students are forced to sit on rugs, carpets, and thin mattresses during lessons. Without fans or air conditioning units, the stifling heat inside the enclosed canvas structures creates severe challenges for students trying to concentrate on their studies.
The financial cost of sending children to class remains a heavy burden for displaced households. Although Elyaa' School is run by volunteer instructors and charges a modest monthly tuition of 30 shekels, or roughly $8 per child, even this reduced sum proves overwhelming for families struggling to secure everyday essentials like drinking water and food.
Surging prices for basic learning supplies have compounded the economic pressure on parents. Khadija noted that the cost of stationery has climbed dramatically, with a single notebook now costing between four and six shekels, forcing parents to make difficult choices regarding what supplies they can realistically afford.
Prior to the outbreak of the war in October 2023, Khadija's daughters attended a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) facility in Gaza City, where they consistently earned high marks and recognition for their academic work. While she expressed deep appreciation for the volunteer teachers striving to help her children recover lost instructional time, she expressed profound sorrow over the substandard conditions in which they are forced to learn.
The plight of the Abu Qados family illustrates a widespread education crisis that has gripped the Gaza Strip through nearly three years of conflict. International monitoring organizations have repeatedly warned that the near-total collapse of the educational system threatens the long-term prospects of an entire generation of Palestinian youth.
According to data released by UNICEF in May, approximately 700,000 boys and girls between the ages of four and 17 have been deprived of formal, in-person schooling for nearly three consecutive academic years. The disruption has left roughly 420,000 children, representing three out of every five students, completely cut off from any face-to-face classroom learning.
The physical infrastructure of the enclave's school system has suffered catastrophic destruction over the course of the hostilities. UNICEF assessments revealed that only two percent of all school buildings in the Gaza Strip remain entirely undamaged, with 93 percent requiring comprehensive reconstruction or major structural repairs before they can safely host students again.
Even when informal learning centers manage to operate, the physical danger to both students and educators remains severe. Ongoing air raids pose an omnipresent threat, with records indicating that at least 300 children have been killed since the implementation of last October's ceasefire framework, including eight-year-old Wafaa Akila, who was killed alongside her father in an air raid while traveling home from school in western Gaza.
Faced with the destruction of official academic facilities and earlier failed attempts at remote learning caused by widespread telecommunications blackouts, local educators and displaced parents have attempted to fill the void. Community-led field schools and temporary educational spaces have emerged across displacement camps in an effort to provide basic literacy and numeracy.
Elyaa' School was established in January by Noha Khadra, a former educator with ten years of teaching experience, operating under the formal supervision of the Ministry of Education. What started as an emergency initiative quickly expanded to accommodate more than 1,100 enrolled students, all managed by a dedicated staff of just 40 volunteer teachers and administrators.
The school's leadership has weathered an exceptionally difficult nine months characterized by acute resource deficits. During the initial weeks of operation, the facility had no furniture whatsoever, forcing children to sit directly on mattresses, while teachers continually faced damaged blackboards and a complete lack of basic learning materials.
To keep lessons moving forward, volunteer instructors frequently purchase paper, pens, and basic supplies out of their own limited funds to distribute to children whose families arrive empty-handed. Principal Khadra has emphasized that the makeshift conditions remain deeply distressing, underscoring that substantial outside assistance is desperately needed to keep the initiative functional.
To maintain operations despite lacking formal funding, community learning initiatives have instituted cooperative arrangements with local staff. For example, Zahra Saleh works as a kindergarten instructor at the site for a nominal compensation package that includes tuition waivers for her own children's schooling.
While private educational establishments such as Abdul Aziz Private School continue to operate with comparatively superior facilities and resources, their tuition rates place them entirely out of reach for the vast majority of displaced families. As a result, the widening divide between private options and under-resourced tent classrooms continues to exacerbate educational inequality across the besieged territory.
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