The school year began in the occupied Palestinian Territories last week amidst parents concern for the economic burden that the new school year brings.

Schools in Gaza opened their doors Sunday last week to welcome children, which included those in Worldvision's North Gaza Area Development Program (ADP). School was interrupted, however, in several areas of the West Bank; teachers in the Bethlehem District, as in Jerusalem's public schools, staged a strike in protest of lengthening the workweek by shortening the weekend to just one day.

'Many families are unable to buy proper uniforms for their children, and only those who get aid manage to do so,' said Mohammed El Halaby, the North Gaza ADP manager , explaining that the start of the school year elicits additional economic strain on the families as they struggle to buy new outfits and other necessities for school on top of their continued concern about the political situation and its ramifications on family wellbeing.

Books, which are also costly, have become a rare commodity as a shortage of printing paper was reported earlier in August. Israeli authorities that control all crossings into Gaza said they would only allow the very basic humanitarian commodities through

Meanwhile, Israeli Children in Sderot, an Israeli town close to Gaza's border, were pulled out of the first day of school by angry parents because the Israeli authorities ignored their demands to move the children to safer learning facilities. Concern over Qassam rockets continuing to be fired from Gaza onto the town were realized on September 2 when a few rockets fell near a kindergarten. No one was harmed in the incident, but the children were treated for shock.