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<div class="ViewDetails_Title"><big><b><big>Tears, devastation as
Gaza children back to school</big></b></big><br>
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<div class="ViewDetails_Stamp">Published today (updated)
15/09/2014 17:37<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=727542">http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=727542</a></small></small></b><br>
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<div id="BODYdiv" class="ViewDetails_BodyDiv">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.<br>
<br>
"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.<br>
<br>
"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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
"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.<br>
<br>
Azhar's father Tamer Jundiyeh was killed in an air strike on the
Shujaiyeh neighborhood, orphaning her and her five younger
siblings.<br>
<br>
"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.<br>
<br>
Azhar's classmate Isra shook as she spoke of the Israeli raid that
killed her grandfather and aunt.<br>
<br>
"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."<br>
<br>
Another classmate, Doa, had lost her school uniform after her
house was destroyed, and came to class wearing regular clothes.<br>
<br>
"We left our house when it was being bombed and when we returned
it had been destroyed," she told AFP.<br>
<br>
<b>24 schools destroyed</b><br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Thousands of structures, including schools, were razed by the
bombings.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
"We had to merge classes -- instead of 35 pupils per class, we now
have 60," she told AFP.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.</div>
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