CAIRO: Qatar is participating in the emergency meeting of the Palestine Children Educational Affairs Council being held in the Arab League's Secretariat-General in Cairo, Egypt. The two-day meeting began on Sunday.
The meeting aims to address the severe challenges and urgent needs of the education sector in the Gaza Strip.
Ali Hussain Al Jarhab is representingthe Permanent Mission of Qatar to the Arab League.
In his address at the meeting, Arab League Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Ambassador Saeed Abu Ali said that the meeting's goal is to follow up on the the education sector and its catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, the repercussions of the ongoing Israeli aggression, along with the sector's challenges and its urgent needs, adding that the meeting stems from a sense of duty towards supporting Palestine in countering Israeli aggression and supporting the Palestinian education sector.
Abu Ali explained that the education sector in the Gaza Strip has faced a terrible disaster due to the enormous human and material losses affecting both official and private education. He pointed out that schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have been turned into shelters, which themselves have not escaped destruction, with civilians seeking refuge there.
The Arab League's assistant secretary-general added that the scale of the disaster experienced by the education sector in Gaza requires further measures and the provision of the necessary support mechanisms to meet urgent needs, alleviate the impact of the disaster, and address its repercussions on the current situation of education, the future of Palestinian education, and Palestinian future generations.
He emphasized the crucial role of education in sustaining the resilience of the Palestinian people.
In turn, Minister of Education and Higher Education in the Palestinian government Dr Amjad Barham said that Israeli occupation forces have destroyed all Palestinian schools and universities in the Gaza Strip, which included 309 schools under the Palestinian government and an equal number under UNRWA.
He added that 290 of these schools have been destroyed in Gaza, whereas the remaining ones have become shelters for those whose homes were destroyed by Israeli aggression and who are now homeless.
Dr Barham continued that when it comes to universities, more than 80 percent of Gaza's universities have been completely destroyed.
He added that there were 630,000 students in Gazan schools run by UNRWA and the Palestinian government, with 9,500 having lost their lives, while 15,000 are wounded, in addition to 3,000 who became disabled as a result of this fierce war. Dr Barham pointed out that 290 public school and 110 private school teachers have also lost their lives.
On the sidelines of his participation in the emergency meeting, President of Al Azhar University Gaza Prof Omar Milad told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that 40,000 students in the high school level could not sit for exams this year in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli aggression since October 7.
He noted that the higher education sector in Gaza has also been subjected to total destruction by the Israeli occupation.
Milad highlighted the suffering of over 88,000 university students in Gaza due to this brutal aggression, pointing out that Al Azhar University in Gaza has been destroyed by the Israeli entity.