Two-thirds of schools in the Gaza Strip run by the Palestinian aid agency UNRWA have been damaged since the war began nine months ago, the agency said on Wednesday.
Some schools were bombed, many were badly damaged, Filip LazzariniHead of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, posted to X.
“Schools have gone from being safe places where children could learn and find hope to overcrowded shelters, often ending up as places of death and misery,” Lazzarini wrote.
The UNRWA chief added that four schools had been hit in the past four days alone, without specifying which warring party was behind the attacks.
According to the agency, it ran 284 schools in the closed coastal strip before the war in Gaza began on October 7.
“For nine months, under our watch, the merciless, endless killings, destruction and despair continue. Gaza is no place for children,” Lazzarini said, calling for an immediate ceasefire.
He stressed that the “flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law” must not become the new norm.
In Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry wrote on X that it is unacceptable that civilians seeking protection in schools are murdered.
The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop and be investigated “swiftly”, the agency demanded.
