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These girls are not getting enough education because of a brutal Israeli occupation
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 2 (IslamOnline & News ) - Hundreds of thousands
of Palestinian children can not attend their regular schools because of
Israeli army incursions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a UNICEF
official said Wednesday, October 2.
“Right
now the Israeli military is preventing thousands of Palestinian children
and teachers from attending school,” said Pierre Poupard, the
representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the
Palestinian territories.
UNICEF
said in a statement that more than 226,000 children and more than 9,300
teachers are “unable to reach their regular classrooms” and at least
580 schools have been closed because of curfews, closures and other
measures.
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Palestinian children live in constant fear of the Israeli occupation army
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Many
Palestinian children are now being schooled at home or in makeshift
classrooms such as mosques, basements and alleyways, the statement said,
adding it was difficult to assess the quality of such teaching
arrangements.
“Alternative
schooling initiatives are an indication of the extent to which the
regular lives of Palestinian children are being devastated by this
conflict,” Poupard said in the UNICEF statement.
UNICEF
said that Israel as an occupying power has an obligation to ensure
education is accessible to every Palestinian child, in line with the 4th
Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“As
an absolute minimum, mobility restrictions on Palestinian civilians must
be lifted throughout (the occupied Palestinian territories) during
school hours,” it said.
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A painting by a Palestinian child on life under Israeli occupation
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Almost
one million Palestinian children are of school age.
Children
living in and around the towns of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Hebron
have been most affected after more than three months of Israeli
reoccupation of the West Bank.
In
a live dialogue with IslamOnline, Joman Taher Karaman, the Director of
Education in Nablus, said “This scholastic year we have had only two
days of attendance.
“I
would like to note that since June 20th, we have been under curfew.
Schools normally used to provide some simple medical care like
vaccination in coordination with the health department, and tests of eye
sight. This is no longer the case,” she said. 
