Islam Times - UNRWA: 69 Percent of Gaza’s School Shelters Damaged During War

Islam Times - The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), citing the Global Education Cluster, said 69 percent of all schools sheltering displaced families in Gaza have either been “directly hit or damaged” during the war.

Shelters run by UNRWA itself, which is the main group providing assistance to displaced people in Gaza, have also been repeatedly hit, according to the agency, killing more than 500 people sheltering in them, Al-Jazeera reported.

“This blatant disregard of humanitarian law must stop. We need a ceasefire now,” UNRWA said in a post on X.

On Friday, UNRWA said that over three-quarters of schools in the Gaza Strip need to be rebuilt.

"In Gaza, over 76% of schools need reconstructing or require major rehabilitation to be functional again," it added.

Most schools in the Palestinian enclave have been turned into shelters for hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge from the ongoing Israeli bombardment, with many completely destroyed or badly damaged in the onslaught that has continued since October 7 last year.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

More than 37,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 85,900 injured in Israel’s onslaught since October 7, according to health authorities.