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New Gaza School Curriculum Promotes Antisemitism and Glorifies Hamas Attacks, Report Finds
A Palestinian school girl Fajr Hmaid, 13, teaches her neighbors’ children an Arabic language lesson as schools are shut due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions, at her family house in Gaza, May 19, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem.
A recently implemented curriculum in Gaza schools, sanctioned by the Palestinian Authority (PA), glorifies the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, praises terrorists who killed children, and promotes antisemitic stereotypes, according to a new report.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a nonprofit organization that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula around the world, has released a new report analyzing the recently introduced Gaza curriculum produced by the PA, revealing it violates Palestinian commitments made to donor countries for educational reform.
Last year, the PA committed to the European Union that it would reform its educational content to fully align with UNESCO’s standards of peace and tolerance in education, in exchange for continued EU funding.
Despite international expectations for reform, the IMPACT-se study shows that the 2025 educational curriculum “fails to meet basic international educational standards,” with the new textbooks promoting antisemitic narratives, glorifying violence, and even celebrating the mass murders carried out during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel.
According to the new report, the 2024-2025 curriculum, which is being taught to nearly 300,000 Palestinian school children in grades 1-12 across Gaza, erases the State of Israel from the map and is filled with “graphic depictions of violence.”
For example, students are taught in geography and civics lessons that cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa are identified as Palestinian, promoting the belief that Israel’s existence is illegitimate.
Some of these textbooks openly glorify the Oct. 7 attacks, referring to the attackers as “heroes” and “symbols of pride,” celebrating the single deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“We see again that the PA continues to deeply embed hatred and violence in its curriculum and brazenly continues to teach antisemitism, the glorification of terrorism, and the dehumanization of Israelis,” IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff said in a statement.
“Palestinian classrooms remain a breeding ground for extremism, with new educational materials reinforcing the same old dangerous narratives,” he added.
The study also reveals how PA-sanctioned educational materials promote antisemitic narratives and imagery. In an 11th-grade history textbook, the ancient stereotype of Jews controlling the world is perpetuated through an image of a hand with a Star of David gripping a globe.
In another example, an Islamic education textbook depicts “the Jews” as “deceitful, immoral manipulators who are hostile to Islam.”
According to the IMPACT-se watchdog group’s investigation, the concept of jihad as a religious obligation is a central theme in the new curriculum, teaching students from a young age that martyrdom is a path to divine reward. Starting in 1st grade, martyrs are glorified as having divine status.
The PA’s remote learning program for both Gaza and Hamas-run schools continues to promote hate and violence, with new materials even teaching science and math in ways that fuel hatred of Israel, the study finds.
For example, in a 3rd-grade math exercise, students are asked to write the number of martyrs killed during the violent First Intifada against Israel. In a 9th-grade statistics lesson, students are asked to calculate the number of “martyrs” killed by Israel.
The report finds that students are encouraged to view violence against Israel as a noble and necessary duty. In such textbooks, terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 Coastal Road massacre that killed 38 Israelis – including 13 children – are celebrated as role models.
In another example from earlier this year, a video shows young girls performing a nationalistic dance with throat-slitting gestures. The song playing in the background includes the lyrics, “We ignited the intifada, with a stone and a knife,” while the girls chant enthusiastically, “Challenge accepted, where are the Zionist and the soldier?”
The post New Gaza School Curriculum Promotes Antisemitism and Glorifies Hamas Attacks, Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.