UNRWA warns of ‘lost generation’ as Gaza’s children miss another school year

Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has warned of the devastating impact of Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip, saying it could lead to a “lost generation”.

“Gaza where schools are not schools anymore,” he wrote on X. “When the war started, @UNRWA was forced to close all its schools turning them into shelters for displaced families. Classrooms that used to welcome girls & boys are now either overcrowded with displaced families or destroyed.”

#Gaza where schools are not schools anymore.

When the war started, @UNRWA was forced to close all its schools turning them into shelters for displaced families.
Classrooms that used to welcome girls & boys are now either overcrowded with displaced families or destroyed.… pic.twitter.com/juhdTeJ6uj

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) September 11, 2024

Instead of being places of learning, schools in Gaza have “become places of despair, hunger, disease & death,” he added.According to the UN official, half of Gaza’s 600,000 school children received their education in UNRWA schools before the Israeli war on the Strip and stressed the right of Gaza’s children to education like other children in the world.

He warned that the longer students stay out of education, the more likely Gaza is to have a “lost generation” and “This is a recipe for future resentment & extremism.”

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Education said the Israeli occupation had killed 8,672 school and university students in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank since 7 October. It indicated that 353 government schools and universities, and 65 UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip had been completely destroyed or partially damaged.

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