Food and Learning Under Fire: Gaza’s Children Face Hunger in the Classroom

In a war zone where education and survival now share the same fragile space, Youth Vision Society is helping hold the line.

As a key implementing partner of the World Food Programme (WFP), Youth Vision Society supports the daily distribution of High Energy Biscuits (HEBs) to children attending Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS) across Gaza. Their teams work deep in the field—in shelters, tents, and damaged classrooms—to ensure food assistance reaches students where they are, despite constant displacement.

“It may seem like just a biscuit,” says Maysaa Al-Hayek, project coordinator for food security in north Gaza, “but for a child in Gaza, it’s the difference between distraction and focus, between weakness and strength. It’s a lifeline.”

Since the escalation of conflict in October 2023, Gaza’s education system has all but collapsed. According to UNICEF, 95 percent of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The few schools that remain intact are now packed with displaced families, leaving almost no space for formal learning.

In Gaza, the line between classroom and shelter has disappeared. Where children once recited lessons, they now sleep. Where teachers mark exams, families cook what little food they can find over open flames.

To help fill the void, humanitarian agencies have established TLSs in some of Gaza’s hardest-hit areas—Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, Al-Mawasi, and Gaza City. According to OCHA, there are now 200 active sites, offering some structure to more than 117,000 children.

Inside these makeshift classrooms, students learn Arabic, math, and receive psychosocial support—often within walking distance of where their homes once stood. Yet they arrive hungry.

“Most children come to class hungry,” Al-Hayek says. “You can’t expect a child to concentrate if they haven’t eaten. Families are overwhelmed. Mothers break firewood to heat water. Some haven’t cooked a proper meal in days.”

In April, during a brief border opening, WFP and its partners—including Youth Vision Society and Global Communities—distributed HEBs, date bars, and meal packs to more than 642,000 people, including thousands of children in TLSs. In northern Gaza alone, Youth Vision-supported teams reached over 16,444 children. Across the Strip, the programme now serves around 38,000 students, though the number shifts with each new attack, each closed road, each denied truck.

These fortified biscuits—sometimes filled with date paste—carry more than just calories. In a place where food prices have surged beyond reach, they symbolize stability, care, and survival. A packet of ordinary biscuits that once cost half a shekel now sells for 15. A single Oreo? Twenty-five shekels—unreachable for most families.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Health warns that 71,000 children under five are at imminent risk of acute malnutrition if sustained aid does not resume.

“Classrooms are no longer classrooms,” Al-Hayek says. “They’re spaces where families sleep at night, and children try to learn during the day. Education had to move to whatever space was left—tents.”

Children now gather in makeshift learning spaces—gripping notebooks with hollow stomachs. “Children remain eager to learn,” one field worker says. “But classrooms open and close like wounds, and feeding programmes flicker under the weight of war.”

“This isn’t just about nutrition anymore,” Al-Hayek says. “It’s about dignity. It’s about a child knowing that someone, somewhere, remembers them.”

In Khan Younis, a girl eats half her biscuit and saves the rest. In Deir al-Balah, a boy clutches a notebook smudged with ash. Near the ruins of a school, 20 children chant the alphabet while volunteers boil water.

As war grinds on, what may appear small—a biscuit, a classroom, a child’s smile—becomes everything. This is what education looks like under siege: half a meal, half a lesson, and a full heart still fighting for the future.