This week, when they would normally be going back to school, the Qudeh family’s children stumbled with armfuls of rubble they collected from a destroyed building to sell for use in building graves in the cemetery that is now their home in southern Gaza, reports AP.

“Anyone our age in other countries is studying and learning,” said 14-year-old Ezz el-Din Qudeh, after he and his three siblings — the youngest a 4-year-old — hauled a load of concrete chunks. “We’re not. We’re working at something beyond our capacities. We are forced to in order to get a living.”

Children trod barefoot on the dirt roads to carry water in plastic jerricans from distribution points to their families living in tent cities teeming with Palestinians driven from their homes. Others wait at charity kitchens with containers to bring back food.

Humanitarian workers say the extended deprivation of education threatens long-term damage to Gaza’s children. Younger children suffer in their cognitive, social and emotional development, and older children are at greater risk of being pulled into work or early marriage, said Tess Ingram, regional spokesperson for UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children.

“The longer a child is out of school, the more they are at risk of dropping out permanently and not returning,” she said.

Gaza’s 625,000 school-age children already missed out on almost an entire year of education. Schools shut down after Israel launched its assault on the territory in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. With languishing negotiations to halt fighting in the Israel-Hamas war, it’s not known when they can return to classes.

Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan