Qatar takes part in Arab meet on Gaza education sector's urgent needs

Qatar is participating in the two-day emergency meeting of the Palestine Children Educational Affairs Council held in the Arab League's Secretariat-General here, which began on Sunday.The meeting aims to address the formidable challenges and urgent needs of the education sector in the Gaza Strip.Ali Hussain al-Jarhab represented the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the Arab League.In his address to the meeting, Arab League Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Ambassador Saeed Abu Ali said the meeting's goal is to follow up on 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 said 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 said that schools run by the UN 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 Assistant Secretary-General added 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 emphasised the crucial role of education in sustaining the resilience of the Palestinian people.The minister of education and higher education in the Palestinian government, Dr Amjad Barham, said 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 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, Al Azhar University Gaza president Prof Omar Milad told the Qatar News Agency (QNA) that 40,000 students at the high school level could not sit for exams this year in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli aggression since the events of 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 more than 88,000 university students in Gaza due to this brutal aggression, adding that Al Azhar University in Gaza has also been destroyed by Israeli forces. – QNA