Teenagers across the Gaza Strip are lamenting how Israel’s war has massively disrupted their education.

“I was eagerly awaiting the exams, but the war prevented that and destroyed that joy,” said Baraa al-Farra, an 18-year-old student displaced from Khan Younis in southern Gaza. “At first, we were waiting in the hope the war would end and we would catch up. [But] we don’t know how long it will last or how many years it will deprive us of our educational lives.”

Liliane Nihad, 18, also displaced to Khan Younis from Gaza City, said she and her fellow students had “been waiting 12 years to take these exams and pass and feel happy and enter university … but we have been deprived of all that by this damned war.”

The Education Cluster, a UN-backed organisation, estimated in a report earlier this month that more than 75 percent of Gaza’s schools would need full reconstruction to reopen. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Education, 85 percent of educational facilities are out of service.

Dozens of students and teachers held a protest in Gaza City’s Remal neighbourhood on Saturday, chanting, “We demand our right to take high school exams” and “We want books, not bombs”.