48 Al‐Azhar University, Al‐Aqsa University, the University College of Applied Sciences, and the Faculty of Science and Technology.38 The Israeli aggression affected the infrastructure of the education sector in the Gaza Strip and undermined all efforts and attempts to reconstruct and restore the destruction and damage suffered by schools and universities, a result of the continued Israeli blockade on Gaza and the refusal of the Israel occupation authorities to allow entry of building materials required for restoration or new construction. School administrations were forced to gather students of two or three classes in one semester. The number of students per class reached up to about (120) for an extended time because of the entire destruction of their schools, which resulted in the absence of a school environment suitable for learning. This consequently affected the students' ability to concentrate and absorb. The education sector is still suffering from a severe shortage of educational tools and laboratory equipment, most of which was lost during the Israeli aggression. The Israeli occupation forces have also prevented alternative options for these schools from entering Gaza and the West Bank.39 The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) still needs to build (100) more schools to accommodate the steady increase in the number of students in the Gaza Strip, although the construction or establishment of new schools has been stopped since mid‐2007 due to the imposition of total ban on the entry of construction materials into Gaza Strip. UNRWA has been forced to use (186) “ready rooms” (containers) for many of its schools in the Strip to meet the severe shortage of classrooms, and to cover its urgent need for rooms for teachers in those schools. Additionally, UNRWA was unable to absorb about (40,000) refugee male and female students in the Gaza Strip, thus forcing them to search for public or private schools due to the impossibility of finding desks for them in their existing schools. The Israeli aggression has also left a shadow on the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. Students who enrolled in science faculties at the Islamic University are still deprived of any practical application, as a result of the destruction of laboratories and the inability to reconstruct them. Students of the Faculty of Agriculture at Al‐Azhar University also continue to suffer as a result of the mass 38 39 Ibid. The aforementioned reference. “