What the Record Shows About Textbooks Used in Gaza Schools

Calling Gaza’s schoolbooks “Hamas textbooks” obscures who produced them. Schools in Gaza, including UNRWA schools, used the Palestinian Authority curriculum. The evidence can tell us what approved books contain and how UNRWA reviewed them. It cannot tell us that every teacher taught the material in the same way or that every student absorbed the same message.

Which curriculum is at issue

UNRWA does not write a separate curriculum for Gaza. Its schools use host-country books and then review them against U.N. neutrality rules. In Gaza and the West Bank, that has meant Palestinian Authority books. UNRWA’s digital learning platform says so directly.¹

That means two issues must stay separate:

1. what the Palestinian Authority curriculum says; and
2. what UNRWA does when those books clash with U.N. neutrality rules.

What independent reviews found

The most important independent review is the 2021 EU-commissioned study by the Georg Eckert Institute, a German academic center specializing in textbook research. It did not describe the curriculum as uniformly hateful or devoid of ordinary school content. It did identify serious recurring problems, confirming that the controversy was not invented by advocacy groups.²

The U.N.-commissioned Colonna review, released in April 2024, was broadly supportive of UNRWA as an agency but acknowledged problematic material in some schools. Citing an UNRWA rapid review, it reported concerns on 3.85% of examined pages. Examples included maps omitting Israel outside history lessons, Jerusalem described as the capital of Palestine, Israeli cities described as Palestinian, and use of “Zionist occupation” for Israel.³⁴

That finding places the dispute beyond dueling advocacy reports. The U.N.-backed review described a limited rather than universal problem, but accepted that the problem existed.

What U.S. oversight found

The U.S. Government Accountability Office added an oversight finding in 2026. Its report on West Bank and Gaza education aid found that UNRWA and the State Department had procedures for identifying and addressing problematic content. It also found substantial gaps in State Department reporting to Congress before funding ended. The weakness lay in inconsistent monitoring and reporting, not a complete absence of review.⁵

That finding does not prove the curriculum is beyond repair. It does show that donor governments had reason to keep pushing for better review, better records, and clearer reform goals.

What can be said carefully

The fair version is this:

• books used in Gaza schools have included recurring anti-Israel, and at times antisemitic, content;
• maps and place-names often erase Israel or replace it with a single “Palestine”;
• some materials frame violent “resistance” in ways donors and neutrality reviewers have ruled unacceptable; and
• UNRWA’s own safeguards have not fully fixed the problem.

What the evidence does not support: that every page teaches hate, that every child takes in the message the same way, or that the curriculum alone explains later support for violence. Schools matter. So do family, media, political leaders, and the lived experience of war. Curriculum is one part of a wider political culture, not a full explanation for it.

Why donors have leverage here

Curriculum is one part of the conflict that donors can realistically press institutions to change. The European Commission’s July 2024 Letter of Intent with the Palestinian Authority included an education-reform track, and later Commission answers described textbook revision as part of the agreed plan.⁶⁷

Official books are an institutional choice even though curriculum cannot explain every political attitude or act of violence. Donors that fund education have a legitimate reason to examine those choices.

Bottom line

The evidence does not support saying that all Gazan schools teach hate. It does support a more precise conclusion: Palestinian Authority materials used in Gaza, including in UNRWA schools, have repeatedly included anti-Israel and antisemitic content as well as material that normalizes violence. Academic researchers, U.N. neutrality reviewers, U.S. oversight bodies, and European funders have all identified concerns. The scale and effect remain open to debate; the existence of the content does not.

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