... ... ... ... ... ... ... https://thegazachildrenvillage.org/ I sent a $100 donation because this gave me some hope that maybe, there's a path to the conflict not going back and forth forever,...
Quietly, and despite considerable risk, a network of free private schools for war orphans and other children has sprouted in the Gaza Strip. The schools, called Academies of Hope, are the brainchild of a Palestinian American neurosurgeon, Dr. David Hasan, who first visited Gaza on medical relief missions soon after Israel invaded Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Though he hasn’t been back to Gaza since early 2024, he has built the institutions by forging partnerships with humanitarian groups on the ground, hiring Palestinian staff over WhatsApp and raising money — largely from Jewish donors — in the United States and Israel.
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Operating schools in any war zone is hard enough, and schools across the enclave are struggling to rebuild. But Dr. Hasan has compounded his challenges. He revamped a much-criticized national curriculum and worked to keep Hamas from endangering his schools. He also verifies that none of his staff have ties to militant groups, a charge Israel has leveled against the United Nations agency caring for Palestinians in Gaza and some international aid groups.
The schools teach a modified version of the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum, which is taught in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, but without any lessons demonizing Jews or glorifying perpetrators of violence against Israel. Dr. Hasan said the curriculum changes were made without the authority’s permission, prompting threats of reprisal from its education ministry. A ministry spokesman did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment.
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Before-and-after excerpts from the curriculum illustrate the changes:
A math problem comparing the number of “martyrs” killed in the first and second intifadas has been replaced with one involving attendance at a West Bank soccer match.
A reading comprehension selection praising Dalal Mughrabi — a woman who led a 1978 massacre that killed 38 Israelis, 13 of them children — has been replaced with one about Hind al-Husseini, a pioneering Palestinian educator.
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On social media, some Gazans have asked whether Dr. Hasan’s agenda is overly aligned with Israel’s. Others, embittered by Hamas, have retorted that it’s better to teach tolerance than to teach children to sacrifice themselves.
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...leaders of big families in Gaza have helped him obtain space for more schools. “The way we did it is by gaining trust,” he said.
One way is by ensuring those families — as well as the Israelis and his donors — that his staff has no ties to militant groups. Dr. Hasan said that every employee had been cleared with the Israeli authorities and checked against a U.S. government sanctions list.
He also makes clear that his donors include Israelis. “I told the elders, ‘I work with the Israelis,’” he said. “They said, ‘As long as they don’t want to brainwash our kids, we’re fine.’”
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Born in Kuwait to Palestinians from the West Bank, [Dr. Hasan] left the Middle East at 18 to attend college in Texas. At 19, he dropped his given name, Emad, and called himself David.
He said he felt stirred to action by the war. In December 2023, he was in Gaza on a medical mission, performing 20 operations in 10 days, often without anesthetics or antiseptics. He recorded video of maggots crawling out of unhealed wounds. Every patient he operated on, he said, eventually died of infection.
He returned the next April with more medical supplies, and had better results.
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He said he had not returned to Gaza since April 2024 because he had aroused suspicion. When he wasn’t operating, he said, he was poking into hospital storerooms and asking questions, trying to learn if Israeli hostages might be on the premises. He fled, he said, when he was alerted that armed militants were looking for him.
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Dr. Hasan’s sixth school is set to open east of the southern city of Khan Younis with space for 10,000 children, some college classes and even a tiny zoo. And he wants to keep opening schools, with a goal to serve as many as 250,000 youngsters by the end of the year.
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https://thegazachildrenvillage.org/
I sent a $100 donation because this gave me some hope that maybe, there's a path to the conflict not going back and forth forever, someday.