VOA教育报道2024--UN: Schools in Gaza Are Closed as Fighting Continues

The new school year in the Palestinian territories officially began on Monday. But all schools in Gaza are closed after 11 months of war. There is no sign of a ceasefire.

Israel gave new orders to people in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes. The order came after rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.

Umm Zaki has a son, Moataz, who is 15 years old. He was supposed to begin 10th grade. Instead, he woke up in the family's tent in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Water is more than one kilometer away from the tent.

The mother of five told Reuters by text message, "Usually, such a day would be a day of celebration, seeing the children in the new uniform, going to school, and dreaming of becoming doctors and engineers. Today all we hope is that the war ends before we lose any of them."

The Palestinian Education Ministry¹ said all Gaza schools were closed and 90 percent of them had been destroyed or damaged in the war. The war started after Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli towns on October 7 killing² about 1,200 people.

The U.N. Palestinian aid agency UNRWA operates about half of Gaza's schools. Many of them are now emergency shelters housing thousands of displaced families.

UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma told Reuters, "The longer the children stay out of school the more difficult it is for them to catch up on their lost learning." She added that they are then more likely to become "a lost generation." They are at risk for the dangers of "child marriage, child labor³, and recruitment into armed groups."

The education ministry said there are already 625,000 Gazans registered for school who would be missing classes. Another 58,000 six year olds should have registered to start first grade this year.

Last month, the UNRWA started a back-to-learning program in 45 of its shelters. Teachers set up games, drama, arts, music and sports activities to help with children's mental health.

Order to evacuate⁴

Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once. Some have had to flee 10 times.

In the latest evacuation order, Israel told residents of an area in the northern Gaza Strip that they must leave their homes. Rockets had been fired from there into southern Israel the day before.

The United Nations urged Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to attend medical centers to get children under the age of 10 years old vaccinated⁶ against polio. There have been breaks in the fighting to permit a vaccination⁷ campaign. The U.N. hopes to vaccinate⁵ 640,000 children in Gaza. The territory's first polio case in around 25 years was recently reported.

U.N. officials said the campaign in the southern and central Gaza Strip had so far reached more than half of the children there needing the vaccine⁸. Four weeks later, the children must get a second vaccination to complete the treatment.

Touma, the U.N. official, said 450,000 of the children targeted by the campaign had been vaccinated.

Words in This Story

uniform -n. clothing that is just like clothing worn by others at a school or in some kinds of jobs

recruit - v. to persuade (someone) to join you in some activity or to help you

drama - n. the art or activity of performing a role in a play

evacuate - n. to leave (a dangerous place)

1 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

5 vaccinate   

vt.给…接种疫苗；种牛痘

参考例句：

• Local health officials then can plan the best times to vaccinate people.这样，当地的卫生官员就可以安排最佳时间给人们接种疫苗。
• Doctors vaccinate us so that we do not catch smallpox.医生给我们打预防针使我们不会得天花。

6 vaccinated   

[医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的

参考例句：

• I was vaccinated against tetanus. 我接种了破伤风疫苗。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child? 你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

7 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

8 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。