Attacks on Schools in Gaza and Conflict Zones Raise Alarm Over Global Legal Standards
In conflict zones like Gaza, the ongoing targeting of schools is eroding key international legal protections, with devastating consequences, Al Jazeera reports.
On August 10, Israeli airstrikes on al-Tabin School in Gaza City killed over 100 civilians, including many children, as the school was being used as a shelter. According to the United Nations, this was just one of 17 attacks on schools in Gaza in recent months. With schools becoming makeshift refuges, the line between civilians and combatants is increasingly blurred.
While students elsewhere should be starting a new academic year, children in Gaza are living through “scholasticide”—a term coined by Dr. Karma Nabulsi of Oxford University during Israel’s 2008-09 assault on Gaza to describe the systematic destruction of education in the region. Since that time, thousands of students and teachers have been killed, and hundreds of schools damaged or destroyed. The humanitarian toll is immense, threatening not only the future of Palestinian children but also the integrity of international legal standards.
The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols explicitly prohibit attacks on schools, yet such incidents persist. As of early July, 318 schools in Gaza had been directly targeted, according to UNICEF, with further attacks occurring since. The international debate over whether certain strikes, such as the one on al-Tabin School, were legally justified misses the broader issue: schools are meant for learning, not for war.
This growing normalisation of violence against educational institutions is part of a larger crisis. The right to education, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected even during war by the Fourth Geneva Convention, is increasingly under threat.
The failure to enforce international humanitarian laws—ratified by more than 190 countries—puts civilians, especially children, at risk. The international community’s failure to act decisively weakens global norms, making once-unthinkable acts, like attacks on schools, seem tolerable. The world faces a choice: uphold the laws meant to protect the innocent or allow this erosion of global values to continue unchecked.
The consequences of inaction are grave, measured in the futures of children whose education is being obliterated in the crossfire.
