The girls in the Gaza school photograph

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that a school photograph taken in June 2023 at Muscat Secondary School for Girls in Nuseirat, Gaza, became a measure of how much had changed for a group of teenage classmates and their mathematics teacher after the war began. The image showed 15 girls posing with teacher Maha Taha after mock exams, smiling and talking about university plans, careers and everyday school life.

Three years later, Al Jazeera says it tried to track down the girls and bring them back to the same schoolyard. Only three were able to gather for a reunion. One classmate, Lina al-Hour, was killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023. Four others had left Gaza, while several were displaced or could not participate. The school itself has also been affected, with parts damaged by artillery and used as shelter for displaced families.

The piece follows Taha and some of her former students as they revisit the old photo, remember classmates, and describe the rupture to their education and future plans. It presents the reunion as a snapshot of wider displacement and loss in Gaza, where ordinary school routines, exam pressure and teenage friendships have been overtaken by the war.

Al Jazeera’s story uses the photograph to show the human cost of the conflict through a small group of students whose paths were separated by death, displacement and exile, while also showing the continuing effort to keep schooling going in damaged and overcrowded conditions.