New schools to be created for evacuees from Gaza area and the north

New schools will be established in the coming days for students who have had to leave their homes due to the security situation, the Education Ministry announces.

The schools will be located in Eilat, the Arava, and near the Dead Sea, areas where large numbers of citizens have been transferred and where in-person learning is permitted as usual, under the wartime rules drawn up by the Home Front Command.

Some 120,000 citizens have been displaced or evacuated from Gaza-adjacent communities and from the north of Israel, including residents of Sderot, Ofakim and Kiryat Shmona. In Eilat, Education Minister Yoav Kisch says, the school system has essentially doubled in size due to the influx of students, and the schools are currently working in shifts, with morning and afternoon learning, in order to accommodate them.

In areas where it is permitted under certain security conditions, about 40% of schools have begun to have in-person activities, the ministry says.

Distance learning under the system first devised during the 2020-21 COVID lockdowns has been implemented in most areas, and in order to facilitate this the ministry has distributed nearly 5,000 laptop computers to evacuee families, with plans to provide a total of 10,000.