Most of Gaza’s schools are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of children cannot go back to class

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Bissan Younis looked dejected as she stood outside a cluster of tents surrounded by rubble and debris, a wasteland that is a common sight across the Gaza Strip. The tiny encampment was yet another makeshift school that has no room for her teenage son Kareem.

“Most of the schools are destroyed,” she told The Associated Press. “Every school I go to tells me there is no room.”

More than 600,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have missed the past two years of school because of the war between Israel and the militant Hamas group. Instead of studying and socializing, they have been repeatedly displaced, fled airstrikes and shelling and often spent their days scouring for water and food for their families.

With a ceasefire reached last month largely holding, humanitar