A further source of anguish is shared by parents like “Amna,” who wants her children to have a decent education, “to think rationally… and live a modern life.” She fears sending them to Ha-mas-run schools for this reason — “because that’s where they indoctrinate people,” instructing children “how they can go to heaven” through martyrdom, “and I don't want my kids to be exposed to that indoctrination.”

By way of context, in the years before Hamas seized power in 2007, a new discussion about the need for Arab education reform was spreading in the region. As the UN’s 2002 Arab Human Development Report put it, “Today’s global information marketplace requires a different kind of education, one that imparts the competencies, attitudes, and intellectual agility conducive to systemic and critical thinking within a knowledge-driven economy.” Whereas some Arab countries have seen steps forward in this direction, Hamas has transformed Gazan education into a system for ideological indoctrination and military recruitment. Gender segregation is imposed not only on students but on teachers. “They monitor [us] when we talk to our male colleagues and they humiliate us if we don't dress in the way they want us to,” one Gazan teacher told the Atlantic. Rules are enforced by “modesty police,” who are known to abuse those in their custody.

Pervasive antisemitic indoctrination and Holocaust denial are coupled, from an early age, with instruction in weapons use and encouragement to wage “jihad” after graduation.

As Amna makes clear, she wants a different future for her children.