Gaza war prevents exams and destroys dreams of Palestinian students

This month, teenagers across the Gaza Strip were supposed to take their final exams, a final hurdle before attending university and realizing their lifelong dreams. But the war in the Palestinian territories has dashed those hopes.

According to the Ministry of Education in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, 85 percent of educational institutions in the area are out of service because of the war.

“I was eagerly awaiting the exams, but the war prevented that and destroyed the joy,” said Baraa al-Farra, an 18-year-old student who was displaced from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

“At first we waited, hoping that the war would end and we would catch up,” he said.

But “we don’t know how long it will last or how many years it will deprive us of our educational opportunities.”

The nearly nine-month war in Gaza began on October 7 with an unprecedented attack by the Islamist militant group Hamas on southern Israel. The attack killed 1,194 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

According to the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, at least 37,598 people, again mostly civilians, were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.

The Education Cluster, a United Nations-backed organization, estimated in a report this month that more than 75 percent of schools in Gaza would need complete reconstruction or major renovation before they could reopen.

Many were converted into shelters for displaced people from Gaza, others were damaged in bombings.

– “Books instead of bombs” –

Liliane Nihad, an 18-year-old who was displaced to Khan Yunis from Gaza City in the north of the territory, said she and her classmates had been “waiting for 12 years to take these exams, to pass, to feel happy and to go to university… but this damn war has taken all that away from us.”

Nihad said she had hoped to study English and get a PhD, “but that all went up in smoke.”

To express their anger over the situation, dozens of students and teachers held a protest rally in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday.

“We demand our right to graduate from high school” and “We want books, not bombs,” they chanted, while empty chairs were set up to symbolize the students killed in the war.

Even mediation has not been able to end the fighting and young people in the Gaza Strip are in great uncertainty about their future.

Farra said he wanted to leave the area to pursue his dreams.

“I hope the passage will be opened so that I can travel to complete my education and not waste my years, because I am young and I want to achieve my goals.”

At the moment he is faced with the harsh reality of life under siege.

“I wish I could now experience the exhaustion that comes from staying up late and studying, rather than the exhaustion that comes from standing in line for fresh and salt water,” in an area where clean water, like many other essentials, is scarce.

– “Mentally exhausted” –

Students in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will take part in the exams, as well as those Gaza residents who managed to escape to neighboring Egypt.

But the war was also extremely destructive for these students.

“We are psychologically exhausted and not well prepared,” said Muhammad Osama, a student from Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, after completing his religious studies exam in Cairo.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, 20 high school students are among the hundreds of Palestinians killed there.

Wafa reported that 89,000 students from Gaza and the West Bank are expected to take their high school exams this year.

Back in Gaza, however, there will be no tests at all.

The UN referred to the Palestinian Ministry of Education and stated that around 39,000 high school students in Gaza were unable to take their exams.

Sulaf Mousa, an 18-year-old from Al-Shati camp west of Gaza City who was hit by a deadly airstrike on Saturday, said he had hoped to study medicine and become a doctor.

“Now we hope that we survive the war and do not lose more than we have already lost,” Mousa said.