In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities, games, drawing, drama, art, not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine, in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war, Atef’s grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes and missiles.
Finding free space is among the biggest challenges. Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in homes still standing.
It took volunteer teachers more than two months to clear one room in a school in Deir al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.
“Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step,” Ingram said, but “ultimately the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides.”
This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12 for play-based numbers and literacy learning in Rafah. But UNICEF says those plans could be disrupted by Israel’s operation there.
Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll, it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labour, sexual violence, trafficking and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.
“Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible,” said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.
Palestinians say they have seen more children take to Gaza’s streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.
“The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate, canned goods,” said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. “There is nothing for them to do.”
Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted, with the world around them at war.
Sabreen al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir al-Balah from Gaza City, said it is particularly hard for the many who have seen relatives die.
“When you speak in front of children,” al-Khatib said, “what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?”
On October 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin, Lama’s younger sister, was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent. Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir al-Balah.
“It is a disaster,” she said. “My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school.”
