Students protest Israeli siege in Gaza

More than a thousand students participated in a sit-in on Thursday at the Unknown Soldier monument in the center of Gaza city in protest against the continuation of the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip which has resulted shortages of basic school supplies.

Ma'an's reporter said that the sit-in has been organized by the Islamic student organization in Gaza City. Protesting students raised posters with signs calling an end to the siege which has further harmed the educational process in the coastal Strip.

One of the students handed a letter to the director of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which runs schools in Palestinian refugee camps, in the Gaza Strip which explains the dire situation of students and education sector in the Gaza Strip. It also contained demand to lift the siege.

"The Gaza Strip has been suffering from serious shortage in papers, notebooks and other stationery because nothing of that stuff has entered the Gaza Strip since eight months. That also resulted in increase in the prices of stationery," said Khalil Al-Astal, the coordinator of the Islamic bloc in Gaza City.

He added that there is also a shortage of textbooks because they have not arrived from Ramallah in the West Bank.