File photo: Students sit in a classroom on the first day of the new school year at the United Nations-run Elementary School at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, August 8, 2020. AP
Over 1.3 million Palestinian children in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip will return to school this week and the next.
For children, schools should be a sanctuary—a place where they "learn, thrive and are protected", said Hastings. The UN official lamented, however, that the reality for these young learners in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is bleaker.
2023 has been "a very bad year”, noted Hastings in a statement on Monday.
Education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been hit by “prolonged strikes by UNRWA and public-school teachers in the West Bank, escalation in Gaza in May, and Israeli military operations in Palestine refugee camps in the West Bank”, according to the UN’s official statement.
Since the beginning of the year, 42 Palestinian children have been killed between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Six Israeli children have been killed in the same period.
In the first six months of 2023, the United Nations recorded more than 423 incidents impacting Palestinian children and their education, including Israeli Forces firing at schools and/or students, the demolition of schools, harassment by Israeli settlers and checkpoint delays affecting approximately 50,000 children, the UN statement said.
The United Nations documented three schools demolished by Israeli authorities in the last 12 months, most recently on 17 August in the village of Ein Samiya, only days before the start of the new school year.
58 other schools are currently facing partial or full demolition or stop-work orders, Hastings said.
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory urged all actors to comply with their obligations to protect children from exposure to all forms of violence.
“Safe access to education is a fundamental right of all children which must be protected and safeguarded at all times by all parties”, urged the statement.
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