Israel has killed over 800 Palestinian teachers, ministry says

Israel has killed more than 800 Palestinian teachers and injured over 3,300 since the start of its war on Gaza in October 2023, the Palestinian Education Ministry said on Sunday.

In a statement ahead of World Teachers’ Day on October 5, the ministry said educators across the occupied Palestinian territories were fighting “a real battle for survival” to protect children’s right to learn, The Express Tribune reported, citing Anadolu Agency.

“Comprehensive genocide” of education

The ministry said the education sector in Gaza and the occupied West Bank had suffered “comprehensive genocide” since the war began.

• Killed: more than 800 teachers
• Injured: more than 3,300 educators
• Detained: more than 170 teachers still held “in harsh conditions”

Checkpoints and harassment

In the occupied West Bank, teachers face movement restrictions and harassment at hundreds of checkpoints every day, the ministry said. It singled out:

• Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron
• Al-Mughayyir, in the central West Bank, the scene of repeated settler attacks
• The Jordan Valley
• Area C, which covers about 60 percent of the West Bank and remains under full Israeli control under the 1995 Oslo II agreement

Under Oslo II, Area A is under Palestinian civil and security control, and Area B under Palestinian civil administration but Israeli security control.

Teachers without pay

Teachers are also suffering severe financial hardship because Israel is withholding Palestinian tax revenues, the ministry said.

Under the 1994 Paris Protocol, Israel collects taxes on imported goods on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and is meant to transfer them. These “clearance revenues” make up about 56 percent of all Palestinian public revenue. Israel began deducting from them in 2019 and later stopped the transfers altogether, leaving the Palestinian Authority unable to pay its employees’ salaries in full.

A call to the world

The ministry urged the international community, the United Nations and education and human rights organisations to take urgent action and provide international protection for students and teachers. It also called on teachers’ unions around the world to press for the release of detained teachers and the payment of the money owed to them.

A generation without schools

In southern Gaza, displaced families living in tents are bracing for another winter. In the Fash Farsh area of Khan Younis alone, 35 camps shelter about 40,000 people, according to a camp supervisor.

Gaza in numbers

The toll on teachers comes on top of the destruction of Gaza’s schools, many of which have been bombed or turned into shelters for displaced families. Palestinian figures say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and 90 percent of its infrastructure has been destroyed. Even after last October’s ceasefire, Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,400 more Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

Why it matters

Teachers are the people who keep a society’s future alive. Killing more than 800 of them, detaining others and cutting off their pay strikes at the education of an entire generation of Palestinian children. On World Teachers’ Day, their loss deserves the world’s attention. Read our report on the Israeli strike that killed a Christian mother and daughter in Gaza.

This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Anadolu Agency.