GAZA: Maha Ali, a student, was determined to become a journalist and cover events in Gaza. Now she and other students have just one goal: to find food as hunger decimates the Palestinian region.
As war rages, she lives among the ruins of Islamic University, a once-thriving educational organization that, like many others in Gaza, has become a refuge for refugees.
We have been saying for a long time that we want to live, get educated, and travel. Now, we're announcing that we want to eat, according to Ali, a 26-year-old honors student.
Ali is one of a generation of Gazans who went from grade school through university and claim to have been denied an education due to nearly two years of Israeli airstrikes that devastated the enclave's infrastructure.
Gaza health officials estimate that over 60,000 individuals have been killed in Israel's response to Palestinian militant group Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on its southern regions. Much of the community, which already suffered from poverty and severe unemployment before the conflict, has been destroyed.
Palestinian Minister of Education Amjad Barham accused Israel of conducting a systematic destruction of schools and universities, claiming that 293 out of 307 schools were destroyed totally or partially.
With this, the occupation intends to extinguish hope in our sons and girls, according to him.
Neither the Israeli army nor the foreign ministry made any quick remark.
Israel has accused Hamas and other terrorist organizations of purposefully embedding in civilian locations and structures, such as schools, and using civilians as human shields.
Hamas denies the accusations and, together with Palestinians, accuses Israel of random attacks.
EXTENSIVE DESTRUCTION
According to the most recent satellite-based damage evaluation in Gaza in July, 97 percent of educational institutions have sustained some degree of damage, with 91 percent requiring considerable repair or full reconstruction to function again, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Restrictions imposed by Israeli officials continue to prevent the delivery of educational supplies into Gaza, jeopardizing the scope and quality of operations, according to the report.
Those terrible figures suggest a bleak future for Yasmine alZa'aneen, 19, who is sitting in a tent for the homeless, sorting through books that survived Israeli bombing and relocation.
She remembered how engrossed she was in her academics, printing papers, finding an office, and furnishing it with lighting.
Everything was halted due to the battle. "Everything I had created, everything I had accomplished, was gone in seconds," she said.
There is no prospect of immediate relief or a return to school.
Mediators have failed to negotiate a truce between Israel and Hamas, which began the battle by murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, according to Israeli statistics.
Instead, Israel is planning a new Gaza offensive, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he anticipates to finish comparatively fast, as the UN Security Council heard fresh calls for an end to suffering in the Palestinian territory.
So, Saja Adwan, 19, an honors student at Gaza's Azhar Institute who is living in a school converted into a shelter with her family of nine, remembers when the structure where she used to learn was destroyed.
Her books and study materials are gone because she is under siege. To keep her mind busy, she makes notes on the few educational documents she has left.
All of my recollections were there, along with my aspirations and goals. I was living my dream there. It was the life for me. When I went to the institution, I felt emotionally at ease, she stated.
"My studies were there, my life, my future where I would graduate from."
