https://arab.news/nd2ss
As the dust begins to settle over the ruins of Gaza, the world faces a moral reckoning. It is no longer enough to deliver sacks of flour, medical supplies or tents to the survivors. The children of Gaza — hundreds of thousands of them — need something far more enduring than relief aid. They need education. They need the promise of a future that stretches beyond hunger, fear and rubble. For too long, Gaza’s children have been denied not only the right to live but also the right to learn — and in that deprivation lies the greatest long-term danger of all.
Today, nearly 1 million children in Gaza are out of school. Entire neighborhoods that once housed classrooms are now piles of concrete dust. The UN estimates that more than 80 percent of Gaza’s schools have been damaged or destroyed and many of those that remain are being used as shelters for displaced families. The blackboards are gone, the teachers scattered or dead and the pupils — many of them orphaned — have lost both their classrooms and their childhoods.
In humanitarian crises, the immediate priorities — food, water, medicine — are obvious. But in Gaza, where war has stretched from months into years, survival must not be mistaken for living. Education is not a luxury that can wait until peace returns; it is the foundation on which peace depends. Without it, Gaza’s next generation will grow up ill-equipped to rebuild, govern or heal their society. A child who cannot read or write cannot rebuild a nation.
