Gaza Herald – After two years of forced disruption to education due to the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, nine-year-old Ritaj Rayhan returned to school, clinging to her simple dream of learning despite the harsh reality.
Every day, she would head to her makeshift classroom tent set up inside Abu Ubaida ibn al-Jarrah School in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. She preferred it over having no school at all, carrying her small school bag on her back with overwhelming joy.
With much of Gaza’s educational infrastructure destroyed, thousands of displaced children have been forced to study in overcrowded tents run by volunteer teachers, all under constant security threats.
For Ritaj, returning to school was a small victory against war, a moment of life pulled from the heart of death surrounding them from every direction.
But that dream did not last. On April 9, the classroom tent became a witness to tragedy when a bullet fired by an Israeli sniper from a nearby military position pierced the tent and struck Ritaj in the head. She collapsed over her notebook, writing the final lines of her lesson and the last page of her life with her blood.
Ritaj, a third-grade student, was killed in front of her classmates, whose screams for help echoed through the place, leaving them deeply traumatized.
Her father, Abdulrahman Rayhan, described her as intelligent, beautiful, and full of life. “Ritaj was our first child, our first joy. She loved school and went every day with enthusiasm, even though it was just a tent,” he said in a broken voice.
“She left without finishing her homework, and I will never hear her voice again.”
At Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the father stood in shock before his daughter’s body, unable to comprehend that the child who left home laughing that morning had returned wrapped in a white shroud, leaving behind an empty school seat and an unfinished notebook.
“I only saw her in the hospital, covered in blood. She went out smiling and came back in a shroud from school,” he said. “My daughter wasn’t carrying a weapon to be killed.”
Gaza’s Ministry of Education condemned the killing, describing it as a “heinous crime” that reflects a “systematic policy targeting the Palestinian civilians.” The ministry held Israeli authorities fully responsible, adding that continued international silence amounts to complicity.
Her mother, Ola Rayhan, described Ritaj as “a piece of my soul and the most precious thing I had.” She said she had bought her daughter a beautiful dress and golden shoes to attend her uncle’s wedding the following week.
“But she came back to me in a white shroud stained with her blood. Joy turned into grief.”
Since the war began on October 7, 2023, more than 21,000 children have been killed, around 30% of total casualties, while about 44,000 others have been injured, including 10,500 who suffered permanent disabilities.
According to UNICEF estimates, Gaza’s education sector is facing an unprecedented collapse. Nearly 600,000 school-age children have been deprived of in-person education for over two consecutive years, while more than 97% of schools have been partially or completely damaged, leading to a near-total paralysis of the education system.
