Palestinian Territory – Israel continues to commit scholasticide in the Gaza Strip, 28 months after its military attack through systematic and deliberate policies aimed at preventing the population from restoring education.
These policies include the ongoing blockade, the targeting of civilian objects, including educational facilities, through bombing and destruction, the prevention of reconstruction, and the obstruction of the entry of materials, equipment, and operational resources needed to rehabilitate and run schools and universities. As a result, hundreds of thousands of students remain cut off from formal education.
The current reality reflects a systematic Israeli pattern aimed at destroying the education system in the Gaza Strip by targeting civilians, including students, teachers, and academics, and by attacking civilian objects such as schools and universities, rendering them inoperable. This entrenches scholasticide within a broader policy of destroying the foundations of life in the enclave and stripping society of its ability to survive and recover, while advancing forced displacement and the coercive reshaping of the demographic and social reality.
This pattern shows that these attacks are not incidental damage to educational infrastructure but scholasticide, carried out as part of Israel's genocide against Palestinians
What remains of education in the Gaza Strip is limited to partial learning in heavily damaged or semi-destroyed schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), alongside small community initiatives and temporary private schools. Most operate in tents that fail to meet minimum safety, protection, or educational standards and function under constant instability and danger.
As a result, more than 780,000 students have been deprived of regular education across three consecutive academic years. This prolonged disruption deepens learning gaps, disrupts students' academic path, and undermines their chances of completing higher education and entering the labour market.
The Israeli military attack has caused catastrophic and unprecedented losses in the education sector, affecting lives, infrastructure, and the educational environment. This unfolds within a context that entrenches educational genocide as an attack on both individuals and institutions.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented the killing of 18,911 school pupils and 1,362 higher education students, in addition to the injury of 2,931 higher education students and tens of thousands of other students who sustained varying injuries. Furthermore, Israeli army attacks have killed 794 teachers and 246 university faculty members and researchers, while injuring 3,261 and 1,491 others respectively.
This reveals direct and systematic targeting of the Palestinian knowledge system through attacks on its educational and research cadres and through undermining its capacity to continue, recover, and reproduce knowledge.
These figures do not represent isolated losses. They reveal a broad and systematic pattern targeting the educational process in all its components, including students and teaching, administrative, and research staff. Such attacks undermine society's knowledge structure, weaken its ability to endure and recover, and leave lasting consequences for development and reconstruction prospects for decades to come.
The Israeli army directly bombed 668 school buildings, completely destroyed 179 public schools, and severely damaged 118 others, in addition to bombing and vandalising 100 UNRWA schools. A total of 63 university buildings were completely destroyed, with severe damage inflicted on the remaining universities and colleges.
Material damage affected 95 per cent of schools in the Gaza Strip, with over 90 per cent of school buildings requiring reconstruction or major rehabilitation, leaving the vast majority out of service. This reflects a policy of systematic destruction of educational infrastructure, unjustifiable on the grounds of military necessity given the scale, scope, and repeated nature of the attacks.
This pattern shows that these attacks are not incidental damage to educational infrastructure but scholasticide, carried out as part of Israel's genocide against Palestinians by targeting the foundations of their survival and destroying the conditions for their present and future life.
Ill-structured temporary solutions and the push towards online learning under power cuts, slow internet, and insecure conditions fail to meet basic educational standards and cannot replace formal education. Relying on such partial measures entrenches ongoing disruption, deepens educational gaps, and leaves lasting psychological and social effects on a generation raised under bombardment, blockade, and deprivation.
Euro-Med Monitor stresses that rescuing the educational process requires a comprehensive emergency plan that restores schools and universities to regular operation wherever possible, provides temporary facilities meeting minimum standards of safety and educational quality when necessary, implements psychological support and academic compensation programmes for students, and rehabilitates affected staff and facilities according to a clear, publicly announced timeline with monitoring mechanisms to ensure implementation and accountability.
Children in the Gaza Strip are the most targeted and affected group in the ongoing genocide. Their suffering extends beyond killings and injuries to the destruction of the conditions for their present and future lives, including the loss of family members, care, and protection; repeated forced displacement; lack of security, food, water, and health care; and severe mental health deterioration from continuous bombardment, fear, and loss. They are also deprived of play, safe spaces, and social stability.
Scholasticide is a central tool in this targeting, cutting children off from formal education during their most critical years, creating deep knowledge gaps, increasing risks of school dropout, child labour, and early marriage, and undermining their ability to recover and rebuild their lives, threatening a generation deprived of healthy growth, dignity, and opportunity.
The international community must pressure Israel to cease targeting civilian objects, including educational facilities, immediately, and to lift restrictions obstructing the restoration of the education sector. This includes allowing the entry of reconstruction materials and operational supplies to rehabilitate schools and universities, as well as essential educational materials such as stationery, books, computers, and teaching tools.
Restrictions should also be lifted on prefabricated units (caravans) for use as temporary classrooms that meet minimum safety, privacy, and functionality standards, rather than continuing education in tents that fail to provide a suitable learning environment.
Euro-Med Monitor calls on the administrative authorities managing the Gaza Strip, including the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), to fulfil their legal and administrative responsibilities by prioritising education. This requires adopting a transparent, publicly announced emergency plan to restore regular schooling, including assessing needs, identifying temporary education locations that meet minimum safety and protection standards, implementing catch-up sessions and psychosocial support, and establishing monitoring and accountability mechanisms to avoid merely managing the crisis or relying on irregular and unsustainable initiatives.
Relevant United Nations bodies, including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and UNRWA, as well as international education-focused institutions, must move beyond formalities to coordinated, practical intervention. This should secure urgent funding and an implementation plan to rebuild educational infrastructure and restore formal education according to international standards.
Additionally, efforts should include providing alternative educational materials, supporting staff training, expanding protection and psychosocial support programmes for children, and establishing oversight mechanisms to ensure reconstruction is not obstructed and that educational facilities remain safe.
Rehabilitation and psychosocial support programmes must be integrated as a core and systematic part of the upcoming educational curriculum to address the deep psychological trauma experienced by over 780,000 students and to prevent educational disruption from causing long-term, irreversible harm.
The continuation of this reality constitutes a blatant violation of the right to education and entrenches long-term impacts on the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the Gaza Strip. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that urgent international action is needed to end scholasticide, protect schools and universities as safe spaces for learning and life, and safeguard the rights of children in Gaza, including the rights to life, safety, care, health, education, and healthy development, free from killing, injury, displacement, and systematic deprivation of childhood.
