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0:00The 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. Omzaki 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-Bala 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
1:19is that the war ends before we lose any of them. The Palestinian Education Ministry said all Gaza schools were closed and 90% of them had been destroyed or damaged in the war. started after Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli towns on October 7, killing about 1,200 People The UN Palestinian Aid Agency operates about half of Gaza's schools. Many of them are now emergency shelters, housing thousands of displaced families. UNRWA Director of Communications Juliet 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 labor and recruitment into
2:43armed 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. Games, drama, arts, music and sports activities to help with children's mental health. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once. Some have had to flee ten 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 Stip to attend medical centers
4:08to get children under the age of 10 years old vaccinated against polio. There have been breaks in the fighting to permit a vaccination campaign. The UN hopes to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza. The territory's first polio case in around 25 years was recently reported. UN officials said the campaign in the southern and central Gaza Strip had so far reached More than half of the children there needing the vaccine. Four weeks later, the children must get a second vaccination to complete the treatment. Toma, the UN official, said 450,000 of the children targeted by the campaign had been vaccinated. I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.
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