The Palestinian Ministry of Education has revealed a devastating toll on the country’s youth, announcing that more than 18,000 students have been killed since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the West Bank on October 7, 2023. The figures lay bare a systematic targeting of education, of not just schools, but the very future of Palestine.

According to the ministry, at least 17,175 students have been killed in Gaza alone, with over 26,000 more wounded. In the West Bank, the numbers continue to climb, with 140 students killed, hundreds injured, and 768 arrested. Educators, too, have paid a staggering price: nearly a thousand teachers and administrators have been killed, thousands more injured or detained.

Entire educational infrastructures have been decimated. Gaza has lost 252 public schools, 118 of them completely levelled, alongside dozens of UNRWA institutions and university buildings. In the West Bank, school raids, demolitions, and attacks have become routine. Online learning is the only fragile lifeline for many university students, but even that is slipping away.

This is not collateral damage. It is the destruction of classrooms, campuses, libraries, futures. Twenty-five schools have been wiped entirely from the registry, erased from maps and memory. What remains is a generation forced to grow up in ruins, where learning is interrupted by sirens, and dreams are buried beneath rubble.

Palestinians are not just losing their children. They are losing the chance to rebuild, to heal, to imagine a tomorrow. This is not just a war on buildings, it is a war on the right to learn, to grow, and to live with dignity.