The Palestinian Ministry of Education announced that "39,000 high school students in the Gaza Strip will not be able to take the exams that qualify them for university education due to the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip." Ministry spokesperson Sadiq al-Khodour explained in a press interview that "there are 1,320 high school students from Gaza currently outside the strip, and exams will be held for them." Al-Khodour added, "The majority of these students (1,090) are in the Arab Republic of Egypt, while the rest are distributed across 28 countries." He noted that this year, 50,000 male and female students are expected to sit for the high school exams in all its branches in the West Bank and in other countries where the ministry has decided to open exam halls for students from Gaza or in ministry-run schools in other countries.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate that 7,034 students have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza, in addition to 65 students from the West Bank. The ministry further reported that "620,000 students (in the Gaza Strip) have been deprived of attending their schools since the onset of the aggression." The high school exams, which are scheduled to start next Saturday, are usually held simultaneously in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the war has disrupted the educational process since it began on October 7.
