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UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini this week made a fresh appeal to the world community to save Gaza’s children from becoming “a lost generation.” He was referring to the fact that more than 600,000 children in the Strip have had no access to formal primary education since October 2023.

Since Israel launched its retaliatory attack on Gaza more than a year ago, it has brushed aside criticisms and denunciations over its deliberate bombing of schools and hospitals. The destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, such as sanitation and water treatment facilities, is seen as having no military value for Israel.

Doctors Without Borders has described what is happening in Gaza as a “war without rules.” It added that, as of Nov. 5, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a mere 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained functional, and only partially so. Eleven field hospitals (five fully functioning and six partially functioning) were operating at that time.

But in northern Gaza, where Israel is forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to abandon their homes, all vital public facilities, including schools and hospitals, are now on the brink of collapse. Last week, four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in the surrounding areas. Israeli troops also forced healthcare workers and patients to leave the facility. According to a statement by Dr. Hussam Abu Saifya, the hospital director, they destroyed critical medical supplies.

With no access to health or education, more than a million children in Gaza are facing horrific living conditions

Osama Al-Sharif

The Israeli army has besieged all three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza and they are being targeted daily.

With no access to health or education, more than a million children in Gaza are facing horrific living conditions. Those who are in designated safe areas are facing malnutrition, diseases and a lack of sanitary services. The education system has all but collapsed.

According to Save the Children, about 30 percent of the 11,300 identified child victims in Gaza between last October and Aug. 31 were younger than five, according to a newly published breakdown of the ages of about 34,000 people whose deaths have been verified by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Of those, more than 700 were aged under 12 months. Another 2,800 dead children have yet to be identified.

In March, Save the Children issued a report that warned of “complete psychological destruction,” adding that “children in Gaza have suffered “relentless mental harm.”

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 and at least 17,000 of them are children.

The lost generation that Lazzarini is talking about is now a reality. No one has an idea how this war will end or when. But what is certain is that, even when it ends, more than a million Palestinian children in Gaza will continue to suffer from psychological and physical trauma.

It is almost impossible to imagine how the education system can ever be restored. Israel has destroyed nearly all universities and 90 percent of schools have been either severely damaged or destroyed. The same applies to the health system, which also lies in ruins.

UN experts in April expressed grave concern over the pattern of attacks on schools, universities, teachers and students in the Gaza Strip, raising serious alarm over the systematic destruction of the Palestinian education system.

“With more than 80 percent of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide,’” the experts said. This term refers to the systematic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students and staff and the destruction of educational infrastructure.

UN experts expressed grave concern over the pattern of attacks on schools, universities, teachers and students

Osama Al-Sharif

Experts, including Israelis, agree that Israel has run out of military targets in Gaza. The systematic bombing of schools and hospitals is instead aligned with political goals: making Gaza unlivable, the displacement of hundreds of thousands, and ethnic cleansing.

The targeting of so-called safe areas, like Mawasi near Khan Younis, has only one goal: terrorizing the civilians, who are primarily women and children.

While the International Court of Justice deliberates on whether Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, it is disturbing that the court has remained silent over Israel’s destruction of hospitals and schools and the use of starvation as a weapon, in violation of its provisional order issued in January.

In January, the court found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures, ordering Tel Aviv to take all measures within its power to prevent genocidal acts, including avoiding and punishing incitement to genocide, ensuring aid and services reach Palestinians under siege in Gaza and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Gaza.

Israel has targeted UNRWA staff and buildings in Gaza from the onset, knowing full well that the agency provides essential services to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Strip.

Despite living under Israeli blockade for decades, Gaza had among the most developed education and health systems in the region. It is horrifying that the deliberate destruction of both is meant to deny those who survive the war any hope of having access to a decent education or an acceptable health system.

The current Israeli government has taken steps to partition the narrow Gaza Strip and create buffer zones that no Palestinians will be allowed to enter. What was already the most crowded strip of land in the world will become even smaller. How the surviving people of Gaza will manage their lives under such conditions is difficult to imagine.

The lost generation of Palestinians in Gaza will be at the mercy of radicals and opportunists. Israeli atrocities have left indelible scars in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of young Palestinians. How that generation views Israel today and in the future puts the whole narrative of peace-building and coexistence in the region in doubt.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010