School materials enter Gaza after being blocked for two years, UN agency says

By Reuters 27 January 2026, 1:44 pm

1 Edit

Palestinian children, many of whom are part of displaced families, sit on the floor as they attend class, at the UNRWA Deir al-Balah Joint School, west of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on December 6, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)

The UN children’s agency says it has for the first time in two and a half years been able to deliver school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities during the war with Hamas.

Thousands of kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, UNICEF said.

“We have now, in the last days, got in thousands of recreational kits, hundreds of school-in-a-carton kits. We’re looking at getting 2,500 more school kits in, in the next week, because they’ve been approved,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says.

COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the Gaza Strip, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UNICEF is scaling up its education to support half of children of school age – around 336,000 – with learning support. Teaching will mainly happen in tents, Elder said, due to widespread devastation of school buildings in the enclave during the war which was triggered by Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 2023.

At least 97% of schools sustained some level of damage, according to the most recent satellite assessment by the UN in July.

Israel has previously accused Hamas and other militant groups of systematically embedding in civilian areas and structures, including schools, and using civilians as human shields.