The Ministry of Education in Gaza revealed on Saturday that over 17,000 Palestinian children, mostly school pupils, were martyred since the onset of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023.In a statement marking the Palestinian Child's Day, which annually falls on April 5, the ministry highlighted that this choked number reflects the scale of the catastrophe and tribulation of Palestine's children, emphasizing that behind each number there is a martyr and a story of life, childhood, and dreams that were shattered due to the aggression.Palestine's children and school students are the most targeted category whose rights have been violated by the Israeli occupation forces amid the tough and unrelenting conditions they are experiencing in the Palestinian enclave, the statement continued.The statement added that the Israeli occupation forces still target the education sector directly, particularly in Gaza, and continue to decimate schools and obstruct the children's access to a better educational future, in light of the relentless and brutal onslaught that devastated hundreds of schools and educational institutions.The ministry stressed that Palestine's children, especially in the Gaza Strip, keep upholding their rights to education as the sole way toward a better future, asserting that it makes extraordinary efforts to promote these rights through providing virtual schools and creating alternative solutions that ensure the continuation of the educational process.In addition, the ministry underscored its unwavering commitment to standing in defense of the rights of Palestine's children to education and exerting all possible efforts to counter the Israeli occupation's policies that target their futures. It called on human rights, humanitarian, and child advocacy organizations to urgently intervene to halt the ongoing violations against them.The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has decimated the entire infrastructure of education in the Strip, where it destroyed public and private schools and those run by UNRWA, along with dozens of public and private universities, some of them were converted into shelters for the Palestinians who are forcibly displaced by the Israeli occupation forces from their residential neighborhoods.