Bittersweet moments of joy as Gaza celebrates high school graduations without schools
By Kareem El Damanhoury, CNN
(CNN) — Doaa Musallem’s high school grades were so good that she got a call from the Palestinian Minister of Education calling her a hero.
But for the 18-year-old, the celebration was bittersweet.
Like some 56,000 other students from Gaza’s class of 2025, the last two years of her education have been nearly completely disrupted by Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed almost 19,000 school age children, made orphans out of thousands of others, and all but decimated the enclave’s formal education system.
“Our happiness is incomplete because our supporter and the pillar of the house is not here,” she told CNN, speaking of her father, who was absent from the celebrations.
Doaa’s father Bassam Musallam was critically wounded by shrapnel in November 2023, when an Israeli strike hit a neighboring house and killed his friend in central Gaza, the family told CNN.
Musallam was evacuated to Egypt for medical treatment in April 2024 and has been there since, missing many milestones in his daughter’s life, including her exam results, which have gone viral.
When she sent her father a photo of the celebrations, standing proudly next to her brother in her graduation gown and cap in front of a bright yellow balloon sign that read: “Congratulations,” she felt like the entire enclave was celebrating with her.
“You are a hero,” Palestinian Minister of Education Amjad Barham told Doaa over the phone as he called to congratulate her on graduating high school and earning the highest grade of any student in Gaza, at 99.7%.
Doaa’s joyful scene was emulated throughout Gaza Thursday, in bright moments that have been rare over the past two years. As the education ministry announced the grades for tens of thousands of high school students like Doaa, there was a buzz in the air as Palestinians set off fireworks and embraced in song and dance.
Mahmoud Elyan, a recent graduate who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to central Gaza, stood at a crowded dessert shop in his hometown with a grin on his face.
“I am happy beyond words,” he told Palestinian state TV. “I am here to buy desserts and hand them out to people because it’s been a long time that people haven’t see desserts after two years of war and displacement.”
For others, graduation day is a reminder of that suffering.
Student Doha Nazmi Abu Dalal, who had been displaced in Deir el Balah, central Gaza, achieved a near perfect GPA. But she was killed less than a month before she could see how her hard work had paid off. Abu Dalal, along with 17 members of her family, was killed in an Israeli strike on October 29, weeks after the ceasefire was implemented, according to hospital authorities.
A ‘scholasticide’
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since October 7, 2023, has decimated the education system in Gaza, leaving it on the brink of collapse, according to UNICEF, and prompting accusations from UN experts of a scholasticide, or the systematic destruction of a country’s education.
Israel has repeatedly said Hamas uses schools and universities as part of its infrastructure to store weapons or as command centers. It has not addressed the scholasticide accusation directly.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) previously told CNN it seeks to minimize civilian harm while Hamas “cynically exploits civilian infrastructure for terror purposes.”
Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed over 97% of schools in Gaza, according to UNICEF, leaving hundreds of thousands of children with limited access to in-person learning.
At least 18,591 school age students have been killed and 27,216 injured over the course of the war, according to the Palestinian education ministry figures. In addition, some 792 educational staff have been killed and 3,251 injured.
Al-Hassan Ali Radwan is one of the Palestinian students who experienced the loss of one of his loved ones when his cousin and study buddy was killed during the war. Like his classmates, Al-Hassan had to navigate the challenges of online education amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
“We had a hard time with internet connection, the lack of electricity and water as well as displacement and most importantly food,” Al-Hassan told WAFA, the Palestinian state news agency, at a shelter for the displaced in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza on Thursday, where he and his friends had gathered to celebrate his graduation.
In central Gaza, another graduate, Dima, who only gave her first name to state media, was celebrating with her family after overcoming trauma attached to her studies.
She said she suffered minor injuries from an Israeli strike that happened during her first private math lesson – at a sporting club – after the war had started.
“I stopped studying for some time because I was scared,” she said. “But I eventually had to keep going because we only get to be highschoolers once in a lifetime.”
Going to university, without the campus
Gaza’s 56,000 new graduates are ready for college, according to the education ministry. But there are hardly any campuses to attend.
Israeli attacks have completely destroyed 63 university buildings over the past two years, according to the ministry.
And resources are scarce. Educational supplies, like stationery, backpacks, and other resources, have been “impossible” to bring into the enclave, despite the implementation of the October 10 ceasefire, because they are not deemed as “lifesaving humanitarian aid,” UNICEF said.
Still, some students and parents are riding the high of Thursday’s graduations, and are hopeful that Gaza’s schools and universities will soon be rebuilt.
Nearly 92% of all education facilities will require either full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to become functional again, according to a recent UNICEF statement.
“Despite the pain and ache in Gaza, we want to be happy and get over our wounds,” Dima’s father said. “Students need to be back in classrooms as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, others are calling for mechanisms to help pursue college scholarships and study abroad, rather than going back online to study.
“This is not life, they (Israel) destroyed our schools and universities,” recent graduate Mohamed Bilal Abu Faraj told Palestinian state media on Thursday after handing out desserts at a shelter.
“Open up the border,” he added, nodding to the continued siege on Gaza.
For Doaa, her father’s injury has fueled her interest in pursuing a higher education in nursing.
She too, hopes to continue her education abroad, where she yearns to reunite with her father once again.
CNN’s Abeer Salman contributed reporting.
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