"I don't have a school uniform because my Dad doesn't have a job and said he doesn't have enough money to buy me one," said Mohammed al-Khouli, nine, at the government-run al-Mu'tasem primary school in Gaza City. "I have to borrow pens and pencils from other kids in my class because I don't have any."

Some 440,000 students attend 640 schools in Gaza; 383 are government schools, 221 are run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and 36 are private schools, according to the ministry of education and UNRWA.

The ministry reckons it needs some 25,000 tons of iron bars and 40,000 tons of cement to build 105 new schools to cater for the annual rise in the number of schoolchildren.

"The war had and continues to have a severely negative impact on the entire education system," Yousef Ibrahim, deputy education minister in Gaza, told IRIN (www.irinnews.org), adding that about 15,000 children from damaged schools had been transferred to other schools for second shifts, thus "significantly shortening class time."

UNRWA began distributing textbooks to all its students on 4 February, according to Khalil al-Halabi, UNRWA's education chief in Gaza. But he said rising unemployment and poverty were leading to more hungry students in classrooms.

According to the education ministry, 164 students and 12 teachers in its schools were killed in the conflict. UNRWA said 86 children and three teachers were killed in its schools.

"Schoolchildren, thousands of whom lost family members and/or their homes, are still suffering from trauma and anxiety and are in need of psycho-social support and recreational play activities," said the OCHA report.

Khalid Salim, 43, a science teacher at Abu Ja'far al-Mansour preparatory school in north Gaza said it was a struggle to teach children.