[News] Tears, devastation as Gaza children back to school

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Sep 15 12:09:22 EDT 2014


*Tears, devastation as Gaza children back to school*

Published today (updated) 15/09/2014 17:37
*http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=727542*

GAZA CITY (AFP) -- As hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children 
returned to school in Gaza on Sunday, Azhar recited a poem eulogizing 
her father, killed by Israeli shelling in the enclave's recent conflict.

"Daddy, what can I tell you, if I say I love you it's not enough," the 
nine-year-old, who was beginning the fourth grade, read to a classroom 
of teary children.

"Today is the first day of school, so even though my dad was martyred in 
the war -- I'm happy," she told AFP with a smile.

Azhar, her classmates and half a million other children in Gaza were 
going back to school after a three-week delay caused by the 50-day 
conflict that ravaged the enclave and left more than 2,140 Palestinians 
dead.

This year's return to the classrooms, teachers and principals said, 
would focus first on dealing with the emotional trauma many of the 
children are still suffering.

"We listen to their experiences from the (summer) vacation, some stories 
make us laugh, some make us cry. We encourage them to talk as much as 
they can," said Azhar's teacher, Rima Abu Khatla.

Azhar's father Tamer Jundiyeh was killed in an air strike on the 
Shujaiyeh neighborhood, orphaning her and her five younger siblings.

"I'm scared the war will start again," she told AFP, recalling the 
missiles from Israeli aircraft that hit her house and killed her father.

Azhar's classmate Isra shook as she spoke of the Israeli raid that 
killed her grandfather and aunt.

"The martyrs and wounded were lying in front of us, we were very 
scared," the nine-year-old told AFP. "My grandfather and auntie Layla 
were killed, I saw them in our house."

Another classmate, Doa, had lost her school uniform after her house was 
destroyed, and came to class wearing regular clothes.

"We left our house when it was being bombed and when we returned it had 
been destroyed," she told AFP.

*24 schools destroyed*

The UN agency for aid to Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which runs 245 
schools in Gaza, has provided specialized training to teachers, with the 
UN estimating that 373,000 children in Gaza will "require direct and 
specialized psycho-social support" this school year.

The latest conflict with Israel, which began July 8, was the deadliest 
since Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Palestinian territory, with more 
than 500 children killed, according to UN data.

Thousands of structures, including schools, were razed by the bombings.

Samia al-Zaalane, the principal of the Shujaiyeh school attended by 
Azhar, said many students had to be transferred to her school, where 
nine out of 18 classrooms were completely destroyed.

"We had to merge classes -- instead of 35 pupils per class, we now have 
60," she told AFP.

Gaza's education ministry says 24 schools were destroyed by Israeli 
bombardments, with another 190 partially damaged in the impoverished 
enclave, in which almost 45 percent of the population of 1.8 million is 
under 14 years of age.

Israeli rights group Gisha said that prior to the war, Gaza was already 
short 259 schools, due partly to Israeli restrictions on the delivery of 
construction materials.

And even as the school year begins, some 65,000 Palestinians are still 
living in UNRWA schools where they fled to escape bombardments that 
destroyed 20,000 homes, with solutions for alternative housing slow to come.
-- 
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