CAIRO, November 25. /TASS/. Almost every single school building in the Gaza Strip has been razed to the ground as a result of Israeli operations since October 2023, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) envoy to Palestine said.

"A total of 97% of school buildings in Gaza have been totally destroyed as a result of the war in the enclave," the Al Jazeera television channel quoted him as saying. "More than 670,000 schoolchildren have been deprived of the possibility to attend classes over the past two years."

He also stated that since October 2023, the Israeli authorities "have banned the deliveries of any materials linked to the educational process to the enclave."

Tensions flared up in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing residents of border settlements and taking more than 250 hostages. In response, Israel initiated a military operation in the Palestinian enclave to dismantle Hamas' military and political structures and free all hostages.

Israel and Hamas resumed Egypt-, Qatar-, United States-, and Turkey-mediated indirect talks on settling the situation in the Gaza Strip on October 6. On October 9, the parties to the conflict signed an agreement on the implementation of phase one of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan. The ceasefire came into effect on October 10.