Coronavirus drives remote learning’s acceptance in the Middle East and beyond

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School buses parked outside a closed school in Dubai. The new coronavirus has turned life upside down in Gulf societies. (AFP)
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Updated 24 March 2020
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Coronavirus drives remote learning’s acceptance in the Middle East and beyond

  • Data shows pandemic is changing how education is imparted in schools and universities worldwide
  • With attendance suspended at education institutions, students are obliged to study from home

DUBAI: It has been 11 weeks since the World Health Organization’s (WHO) China office heard the first reports of a virus that officials suspected was behind an outbreak of pneumonia infections in Wuhan, an eastern city with a population of over 11 million.

Since then, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has gone from being an epidemic mainly limited to China to a global pandemic. The highly infectious nature of the virus has meant that increased numbers of students are now obliged to study from home.

According to UNESCO monitoring, over 120 countries have implemented nationwide school and university closures. The impact is being felt by over 70 percent of total enrolled learners globally.

In the US, one of the few countries yet to enforce a country-wide closure, at least 43 states have closed schools.

FASTFacts

  • There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.
  • The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to the virus.
  • COVID-19 causes respiratory illness with symptoms such as cough, fever and, in more severe cases, difficulty breathing.

In the Middle East, governments have been quick to react, ordering mandatory suspension of attendance.

Even before the full closure of schools, data collected by global research company YouGov showed that 45 percent of parents in Saudi Arabia were taking voluntary measures to stop sending their children to school.

The reasons for taking precautions are compelling. COVID-19 spreads primarily through contact with an infected person who disseminates the virus by coughing or sneezing. It also spreads when a person touches a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touches their eyes, nose or mouth.

While COVID-19 is especially dangerous for older people and those with underlying illnesses, studies have shown that people of all ages can become infected by the new virus.

The WHO has urged young people to avoid socializing in order to not risk communicating the virus to older, more vulnerable people. The organization now recommends “physical distance” to help prevent transmission of the virus.

“I have a message for young people: You are not invincible, this virus could put you in hospital for weeks or even kill you,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, said in a recent online message.

“Even if you don't get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else.”

While businesses around the world are postponing and cancelling face-to-face meetings in order to slow the spread of infections, workplace learning is emerging as one of the earliest and hardest-hit business activities.

Based on McKinsey & Company observations, as of early March, roughly half of face-to-face learning programs through June 30, 2020 have been postponed or canceled in North America. In parts of Asia and Europe, the figure is closer to 100 percent.

In Saudi Arabia, YouGov’s COVID-19 tracker reports that 25 percent of employees are working from home, while in the UAE the corresponding figure is 29 percent. Both of these figures are expected to rise in the coming weeks.

Students, however, cannot afford to postpone their programs, and institutions are quickly learning to adapt.

Until the pandemic began, academic institutions had a history of pushing back against online learning.




Hong Kong students will learn from home as COVID-19 causes school closures. (AFP)

When Times Higher Education surveyed the leaders of prominent global universities in 2018 — 200 participants from 45 countries across six continents — the response was clear. Academics were skeptical about the potential for online learning.

Research comparing physical learning in a classroom over an online experience draws mixed conclusions.

Educational researchers Robert Bernard, Eugene Borokhovski and Richard Schmid, from the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance at Concordia University, Canada, told the Times Higher Education in 2018 that they knew of “no empirical evidence that says that classroom instruction benefits students (compared to alternatives) from a learning achievement perspective.”

More important than the medium was whether teachers could “capture and challenge the imagination, based on the learners’ pre-existing knowledge,” according to the researchers.

Given the lack of options for face-to-face learning under the circumstances, the world’s education system has been thrust into an e-learning experiment of unprecedented scale and scope.

While the process may be uncomfortable for parents, teachers and students alike, the opportunities for innovation are apparent.

“I think we’re seeing the way people live, the way people work, and the way people learn change,” said Amanda Line, partner at PwC Academy, a firm that specializes in finance and business education.

“At PwC Academy Middle East, we have changed our approach to training, to focus 100 percent on online live classrooms,” Line said.

“We all know that it’s very hard sitting on the other side of a screen.

“Our focus is on engagement and so we are investing in gamification, video, animation and live online interaction to ensure participation. You have to be engaged in order to learn.”

COVID-19 is indisputably one of the most urgent cross-border and cross-demographic problems in recent history. As such it has reminded people that the best organizations are those that collaborate generously with others.

UNESCO, for example, has developed a page with educational applications and platforms to help parents, teachers, schools and school systems facilitate student learning, as well as provide social care and interaction during periods of school closure.

Other platforms such as Coursera have also offered to be available globally to any university affected by COVID-19 for free.

On March 20 the audiobook platform from Amazon announced: “For as long as schools are closed, we’re open.”

In Saudi Arabia, where educational institutions have been closed since March 8 to contain the spread of the virus, the majority of schools and universities have implemented e-learning programs to enable students to continue their education.

To support university students and members, raise the quality of virtual classrooms and learning platforms, and improve access to national digital services, the Saudi Research and Innovation Network (Maeen) has teamed up with the Integrated Telecom Company. 




Laptops for students remotely learning in New York City. (AFP)

Their mission is to “increase the data quota between some of the Kingdom’s universities and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology free of charge,” according to the Saudi Press Agency.

In Dubai, where schools, colleges and nurseries have also been closed, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has launched a new online platform for learning.

Parents, students and teachers in Dubai can take advantage of the platform, which features education products and services.

The portal http://inthistogetherdubai.khda.gov.ae has been launched to connect technology and well-being-based organizations with teachers, parents and students who are teaching and learning from home.

It will feature apps, websites and support that will be offered free of charge during the distance-learning period.

While the platform is available to use, KHDA is looking for support from the education and learning community to provide content and free access to resources.

“Many people in our community have been coming to us to offer or ask for help during this time,” Dr Abdulla Al-Karam, director-general of KHDA, said.

“This portal is one way of connecting those who have useful products and services with those who need them," Al-Karam said.

“In the last few days and weeks, it has become clear that for our community, the term distance learning applies to physical distance only.

“Socially and emotionally, we are more connected to each other than ever before. We’re all in this together. Distance brings us closer.”

In a matter of weeks, measures to halt the spread of a previously unknown virus that originated from a seafood market in China’s Wuhan city have changed how millions around the world are educated.


WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals

Updated 06 June 2025
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WHO urges ‘urgent protection’ of key Gaza hospitals

  • The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies”

GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Thursday called for the “urgent protection” of two of the last hospitals remaining in the Gaza Strip, warning that the territory’s health system is “collapsing.”
The WHO said the Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital risk becoming “non-functional” because of restrictions on aid and access routes, further damaging a health system already battered by months of war.
“There are already no hospitals functioning in the north of Gaza. Nasser and Amal are the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, where currently most of the population is living,” the UN agency said in a statement on X.
“Without them, people will lose access to critical health services,” it said.
The WHO added that closure of the two hospitals would eliminate 490 beds and reduce Gaza’s hospital capacity to less than 1,400 beds — 40 percent below pre-war levels — for a population of two million people.
The WHO said the hospitals have not been told to evacuate but lie within or just outside an Israeli-declared evacuation zone announced on June 2.
Israeli authorities have told Gaza’s health ministry that access routes to the two hospitals will be blocked, the WHO said.
As a result, it will be “difficult, if not impossible” for medical staff and new patients to reach them, it said.
“If the situation further deteriorates, both hospitals are at high risk of becoming non-functional, due to movement restrictions, insecurity, and the inability of WHO and partners to resupply or transfer patients,” the organization said.
The WHO said both hospitals are already operating “above their capacity,” with patients suffering life-threatening injuries arriving amid a “dire shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies.”
It warned the closure of Nasser and Al-Amal would have dire consequences for patients in need of surgical care, intensive care, blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis.
After nearly 20 months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza is mired in one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with civilians enduring relentless bombardment, mass displacement and severe hunger.
 

 


Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm 

Palestinian boys carry pots as the queue at a hot meal distribution point in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, June 4, 2025.
Updated 06 June 2025
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Gaza aid logistics company funded by Chicago private equity firm 

  • Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation
  • SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed

WASHINGTON: A Chicago-based private equity firm - controlled by a member of the family that founded American publishing company Rand McNally - has an "economic interest" in the logistics company involved in a controversial new aid distribution operation in Gaza.
McNally Capital, founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, helped "support the establishment" of Safe Reach Solutions, a McNally Capital spokesperson told Reuters. SRS is a for-profit company established in Wyoming in November, state incorporation records show. It is in the spotlight for its involvement with the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which last week started distributing aid in the war-torn Palestinian enclave. The foundation paused work on Wednesday after a series of deadly shootings close to its operations and has suffered from the departure of senior personnel.

HIGHLIGHTS

• McNally Capital has economic interest in Safe Reach Solutions

• GHF aid distribution halted after deadly shootings near operations

• U.N. and aid groups refuse to work with GHF, citing lack of neutrality

"McNally Capital has provided administrative advice to SRS and worked in collaboration with multiple parties to enable SRS to carry out its mission," the spokesperson said. "While McNally Capital has an economic interest in SRS, the firm does not actively manage SRS or have a day-to-day operating role."
SRS is run by a former CIA official named Phil Reilly, but its ownership has not previously been disclosed. Reuters has not been able to establish who funds the newly created foundation.
The spokesperson did not provide details of the scale of the investment in SRS by McNally Capital, which says it has $380 million under management.
McNally Capital founder Ward McNally is the great great great grandson of the co-founder of Rand McNally. The McNally family sold the publishing company in 1997.
A spokesperson for SRS confirmed it worked with the foundation, also known as GHF, but did not answer specific questions about ownership.
GHF, which resumed aid distribution on Thursday, did not respond to a request for comment
While Israel and the United States have both said they don't finance the operation, they have pushed the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it, arguing that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
Israel blocked almost all aid into Gaza for 11 weeks until May 19, and has since only allowed limited deliveries in, mostly managed by the new GHF operation. This week GHF pressed Israel to boost civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its distribution sites after Gazan health officials said at least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near one of the food distribution sites on Tuesday, the third consecutive day of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation.
The Israeli military said its forces on Tuesday had opened fire on a group of people they viewed as a threat after they left a designated access route near the distribution center in Rafah. It said it was investigating what had happened.
The U.N and most other aid groups have refused to work with GHF because they say it is not neutral and that the distribution model militarizes aid and forces displacement.
The SRS spokesperson said in a statement that under Reilly's leadership, "SRS brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts in security, supply chain management, and humanitarian affairs."
McNally Capital has investments in defense contracting companies. Among the firms it acquired was Orbis Operations, a firm that specializes in hiring former CIA officers. Orbis did not return calls for comment. Reilly used to work for Orbis.

 


Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

Updated 06 June 2025
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Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

  • The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead

MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
 

 


Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

Updated 06 June 2025
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Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

  • An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”

NEW YORK: More than 130 news outlets and press freedom groups called Thursday for Israel to immediately lift a near-total ban on international media entering Gaza, while calling for greater protections for Palestinian journalists in the territory.
Israel has blocked most foreign correspondents from independently accessing Gaza since it began its war there following the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack by militant group Hamas.
An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”
Signees included AFP’s global news director Phil Chetwynd, The Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace, and the editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz Aluf Benn.
The letter added that many Palestinian journalists — whom news outlets have relied on to report from inside Gaza — face a litany of threats.
“Local journalists, those best positioned to tell the truth, face displacement and starvation,” it said.
“To date, nearly 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military. Many more have been injured and face constant threats to their lives for doing their jobs: bearing witness.
“This is a direct attack on press freedom and the right to information.”
The letter added that it was a “pivotal moment” in Israel’s war — with renewed military actions and efforts to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This, it said, makes it “vital that Israel open Gaza’s borders for international journalists to be able to report freely and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a separate statement that Israel must grant journalists access and allow them to work in Gaza “without fear for their lives.”
“When journalists are killed in such unprecedented numbers and independent international media is barred from entering, the world loses its ability to see clearly, to understand fully, and to respond effectively to what is happening,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders head Thibaut Bruttin said the media blockade on Gaza “is enabling the total destruction and erasure of the blockaded territory.”
“This is a methodical attempt to silence the facts, suppress the truth, and isolate the Palestinian press and population,” he said in a statement.
Thursday’s letter was issued the same day the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said three reporters were killed by a strike close to a hospital in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said the strike had targeted “an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was operating in a command and control center” in the yard of the hospital.


Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

Updated 06 June 2025
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Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has “activated” some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, though it was not immediately clear what role they would play.
His comments on social media were the first public acknowledgment of Israel’s backing of armed Palestinian groups within Gaza, based around powerful clans or extended families.
Such clans often wield some control in corners of Gaza, and some have had clashes or tensions with Hamas in the past. Palestinians and aid workers have accused clans of carrying out criminal attacks and stealing aid from trucks. Several clans have issued public statements rejecting cooperation with the Israelis or denouncing looting.
An Israeli official said that one group that Netanyahu was referring to was the so-called Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a local clan leader in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
In recent weeks, the Abu Shabab group announced online that its fighters were helping protect shipments to the new, Israeli-backed food distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Rafah area. But some Palestinians say the group has also been involved in attacking and looting aid convoys.
Netanyahu did not specify what support Israel was giving to the clans, or what specifically their role would be. His announcement came hours after a political opponent criticized him for arming unofficial groups of Palestinians in Gaza.
In a video posted to his X account, Netanyahu said the government made the move on the advice of “security officials,” in order to save lives of Israeli soldiers.
Though it was known in southern Gaza throughout the war, the Abu Shabab group emerged publicly the past month, posting pictures of its armed members, with helmets, flak jackets and automatic weapons. It declared itself a “nationalist force” protecting aid.
The Abu Shabab family renounced Yasser over his connections with the Israeli military in a recent statement, saying he and anyone who joined his group “are no longer linked” to the family.
The group’s media office said in response to emailed questions from the Associated Press that it operates in Israeli military-controlled areas for a “purely humanitarian” reason.
It described its ties with the Israel military as “humanitarian communication to facilitate the introduction of aid and ensure that it is not intercepted.”
“We are not proxies for anyone,” it said. “We have not received any military or logistical support from any foreign party.”
It said it has “secured the surroundings” of GHF centers in Rafah but was not involved in distribution of food.
It rejected accusations that the group had looted aid, calling them “exaggerations” and part of a “smear campaign.” But it also said, “our popular forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab only took the minimum amount of food and water necessary to secure their elements in the field,” without elaborating how, and from whom, they took the aid.
Abu Shabab and around 100 fighters have been active in eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, areas under Israeli military control, according to Nahed Sheheiber, head of the private transportation union in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups. He said they used to attack aid trucks driving on a military-designated route leading from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, the main entry point for aid.
“Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing,” Sheheiber said, referring to the Israeli military,
“The one who has looted aid is now the one who protects aid,” he said sarcastically.
An aid worker in Gaza said humanitarian groups tried last year to negotiate with Abu Shabab and other influential families to end their looting of convoys. Though they agreed, they soon reverted to hijacking trucks, the aid worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk the media.
The aid worker said he saw Abu Shabab’s men operating in Israeli-controlled areas near the military-held Morag Corridor in southern Gaza in late May. They were wearing new uniforms and carried what appeared to be new weapons, he said.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN humanitarian office OCHA for the occupied Palestinian territory, said Thursday that “criminal gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces near Kerem Shalom would systematically attack and loot aid convoys. .... These gangs have by far been the biggest cause of aid loss in Gaza.”
The war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-linked militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has decimated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has left the territory on the brink of famine.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them women and children. The ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages. Around a third are believed to be alive, though many fear they are in grave danger the longer the war goes on.