A Palestinian who taught at an Unrwa school in Gaza has revealed that a senior colleague threatened to cut her tongue out when she challenged the radical ideas being taught to children.
The 40-year-old geography teacher, who has now left her job and has not been named to protect her identity, told the New York Post she had joined the school believing it could help prevent young people from succumbing to Hamas’s culture of violence.
One day, she challenged a fellow teacher on the extremism being taught to female students, which prompted a senior official to confront her with a pair of scissors.
She told the New York Post: “She told me, ‘We will make you wish you were dead, and if you don't stop arguing, we will cut out your tongue’.”
She said: “I was shocked to discover that the reality was very far from what I had imagined.
“I was deeply shocked by the ideas they were passing on to these children.”
She said that teachers encouraged students to hate Jews and glorified Hamas's violence against Israel.
She ultimately gave up challenging the lessons out of fear of reprisals.
The school run by Unrwa (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) has since closed and been turned into a shelter but she fears that extremism in education in Gaza is going to get worse and worries about the next generation.
“The danger is more serious than ever now because the children are truly suffering,” she said, referring to the conflict.
“As a teacher, it is my duty to present an accurate picture and call on the world to save our children from these ideas.
“My most important message is that we need to pay attention to who is teaching our children.”
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