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to catch up on their lost learning and the more prone they are to becoming a lost generation, falling prey to exploitation including child marriage, child labor, and recruitment into armed groups,” UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma told Reuters.

In addition to the 625,000 Gazans already registered for school who would be missing classes, another 58,000 six-year-olds should have registered to start first grade this year, the education ministry said. Last month, UNRWA launched a back-to-learning program in 45 of its shelters, with teachers setting up games, drama, arts, music and sports activities to help with children’s mental health. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times. In the latest evacuation order, the Zionist entity told residents of an area in the northern Gaza Strip they must leave their homes.

The United Nations urged Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to attend medical facilities to get children under the age of 10 years old vaccinated against polio. Limited pauses in fighting have been held to allow the vaccination campaign, which aims to reach 640,000 children in Gaza after the territory’s first polio case in around 25 years.

UN officials said the campaign in the southern and central Gaza Strip had so far reached more than half of the children there needing the drops. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first. Later on Monday, Touma said 450,000 of the children targeted with the campaign were vaccinated. “Tuesday is the hardest part when we roll out the campaign in the north. Hopefully, that will work so we complete the first stage of the campaign. The second and final stage is planned for the end of the month when we have to do all of this all over again,” said Touma.

Health officials said on Monday two separate Zionist airstrikes had killed seven people in central Gaza, while another strike killed one man in Khan Younis further south. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said they fought against Zionist forces in several areas across the Gaza Strip with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire. — Reuters