Ongoing Hurdles in Gaza’s Education System and Legal Ramifications

 – by Dr P.V. Satya Prasad & Dr Afaq Ahmad

As senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed late on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of allied Lebanese extremist group Hezbollah, the ongoing situation is supposed to have been deteriorating in and around entire Gaza region. Arouri is the first top Hamas leader to have been assassinated by Israel Defense Forces since October 7 when the extremist group struck Israeli towns, killed a few Israelis, and kidnapped a few of them, leading to a full-fledged war in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The biggest impact of the air strikes unleashed by Israel was on the education/higher education sector in the already war-ravaged Gaza strip. 

The strikes initiated in the Gaza Strip caused the closure of 19 Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and disrupted the operations of 34 HEIs in the West Bank. Approximately 88,000 school-going children had their education affected because of these attacks. In the West Bank, more than 138,000 school children were unable to attend classes due to continuous airstrikes that also aimed at school infrastructure.

A UNICEF spokesperson stated that from the onset of the air strikes on October 7, 2023, the count of students in attendance plummeted drastically from 626,000 to just a few hundred, underscoring the immense disruption inflicted on the education sector in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Over 300 schools suffered damage, and 183 teachers were among the casualties of the relentless air strikes. As a result of this extensive impact on education, authorities in the Gaza Strip declared the Academic Year 2023-2024 void.

The UN Security Council, primarily steered by Western powers, has dimmed the prospects of Palestinian justice. South Africa stepped in to lead efforts in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice, citing alleged violations under the Genocide Convention concerning the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The ICJ holds a dual responsibility: resolving legal disputes between states according to international law and providing advisory opinions on legal inquiries from authorized UN bodies and agencies.

The filed application seeks provisional measures to prevent further severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention.

While this move to involve the ICJ raises hopes for potential directives restraining Israel's actions in Gaza, the downside is the potential for this case to drag on for years before a verdict is reached.

|| Raul Villamarin Rodriguez || Prof. (Dr.) Satya Prasad || Pavana Kiranmai Chepuri || Antarleena Basu, Ph.D. || Anindita Majumdar || Brundaban Mishra || Dr. Naveen Kolloju || Dr. Srinivas Junuguru || Siriman Naveen || Digvijay Singh || Ravikant Kisana || Eldhose Varghese || Dr. Pankaj Kumar Verma || Mandapalli Joshua Theodore George || Alison N. Kearley, ATR-BC, LMHC, LPC || Dr. Ranita Basu || Dr. Dibyangana Biswas || Ramu S, PhD ||