UNRWA says staff ready to take Gaza children back to school
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says on X that 8,000 of its trained teachers are standing by to get children in Gaza back to school, urging the Israeli government to allow it to again act in an official capacity.
The agency was banned by the Israeli government earlier this year.
In #Gaza, over 8,000 UNRWA teachers stand ready to help children go back to learning and resume their education.
UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organisation in Gaza and must be allowed to do its work unimpeded.
Children in Gaza have been out of school for far too long.… pic.twitter.com/7P9632Lr1o
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 18, 2025
What we know about the torture, abuse of Palestinian prisoners by Israel
Most of the bodies of the more than 100 dead Palestinians Israel released remain unidentified.
They were sent back to Gaza with numbers instead of their names, leaving family members of missing Palestinians to pore desperately through pictures of the bodies, hoping to spot their loved ones.
One thing is clear from the marks left on these bodies, and the blindfolds and handcuffs still on some of them: they had been tortured before their deaths, possibly executed.
The torture was confirmed by Palestinian detainees released alive by Israel as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal that has also seen the release of Israeli captives from Gaza.
Reports that Israel tortures Palestinian detainees in its jails have been common for years, and have increased since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, with some Israeli politicians even defending the practice.
At least 75 Palestinian detainees have also died in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023, according to the United Nations.
Ghada Musbeh is trying to find her husband among the bodies Israel released. She holds up her phone with a photo of him, in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 16
‘Physical and psychological torture was the highlight’ of last two years
Muhammad Dahleh, a human rights lawyer, says “the motive for revenge” among Israeli society was strong after the October 7, 2023, attack, and the country’s prison authority acted with the same motive towards inmates.
He said the Israeli prison system started beating and torturing prisoners right after the attack.
“They also prevented prisoners from sleeping and worshipping,” Dahleh told Al Jazeera from occupied East Jerusalem, adding that many prisoners were deprived of medical treatment, which led to deaths in jails.
“The physical and psychological torture was the highlight of this period,” the lawyer stressed.
He said the prison authority played a role in dominating and controlling the lives of the Palestinians, including those not jailed. Almost nobody living in the Palestinian territory was unaffected by the prison authority’s actions themselves or through their loved ones, he concluded.
