Human Rights

EXPLAINER

Why United Nations says US boat strikes may be ‘crimes against humanity’

Washington justifies the attacks as necessary to halt the flow of lethal drugs into the US.

Gaza’s children return to class in tents and ruins

Palestinian students attend their first day of the new school year inside a tent classroom at a school in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

Displaced Palestinian student Samar Abu Salmi, 15, reads a list of names displayed in a school in Khan Younis. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

Tents for displaced Palestinians cover the yard of a school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

Palestinian children sit in their classroom on the first day of the new academic year at a United Nations-run school in Nuseirat, the central Gaza Strip. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

A destroyed UN-run school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, on the first day of the new academic year. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

Palestinian students attend their first day of the new school year at a school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip. [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]

The return to face-to-face education comes after nearly three years of disruption due to Israel's genocidal war, which has seen almost all of Gaza's population displaced and most buildings in the enclave destroyed. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

Clothes hang out to dry as displaced Palestinians live in a school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

About 541,000 students returned to education in Gaza when the new school year began on September 19, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education. This comes after a decrease in - but not an end to - violence following an October 2025 "ceasefire". [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]

In January, the ministry said 317,332 students were attending face-to-face educational spaces, schools and initiatives in Gaza. Another 120,000 were enrolled in virtual schools taught by teachers from the West Bank. [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]

A Palestinian student looks into his classroom while he attends the first day of the new academic year at a UN-run school in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

Nearly 98 percent of school buildings in Gaza have been damaged since October 2023, with more than 93 percent requiring major rehabilitation or full reconstruction, according to UNICEF. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]