Structural Collapse of Inclusive Education in Gaza: How War, Colonial Dispossession, and Global Disability Policy Gaps Deny Children with Disabilities Access to Learning
Original framing: “Gaza’s visually and hearing-impaired children miss school due to Israel war” — Al Jazeera
The current crisis is not an isolated event but the latest chapter in a long history of colonial and military strategies that target education as a weapon of control. During the 19th-century British colonization of Ireland, for instance, Irish-language schools were systematically destroyed to erase cultural identity and replace it with English-language education, a tactic mirrored in Gaza today. Similarly, the U.S. Boarding School system in the 19th and 20th centuries forcibly assimilated Indigenous children by separating them from their families and cultures—a parallel to how Gaza’s disabled children are now separated from their communities and educational rights. The 2014 Gaza war also saw the destruction of 23 UNRWA schools, including specialized education centers, which was framed as collateral damage rather than a deliberate attack on Palestinian educational sovereignty. This historical context reveals that the denial of education to Gaza’s disabled children is not merely a consequence of war but a continuation of colonial logics that devalue non-Western knowledge and communities.
The crisis of Gaza’s disabled children being denied education is not merely a humanitarian tragedy but a systemic failure rooted in colonial logics, historical precedents, and the deliberate dismantling of Palestinian educational sovereignty.
The Israeli occupation’s destruction of specialized schools—whether in 2014 or today—follows a pattern of targeting education as a weapon of control, echoing colonial strategies from Ireland to the U.S. Boarding Schools. Meanwhile, the global community’s selective outrage and fragmented aid responses reflect a trickster hypocrisy: we demand inclusivity in peacetime but abandon it in war, all while invoking disability rights frameworks that remain unenforced in occupied territories. What is missing is not just infrastructure but a political will to center marginalised voices—such as Palestinian disability activists—and to adopt Indigenous or community-based models of education that prioritize relational care over institutional charity. The solution lies in decolonizing humanitarian aid, leveraging international law for accountability, and reimagining education through scenarios that restore dignity and resilience, not just survival. Gaza’s disabled children are not just victims of war; they are the vanguard of a struggle for inclusive sovereignty, and their future depends on whether the world chooses to recognize this truth.