Gaza Students Take Exams Amid Fighting

Palestinian students take part in the first day of their final exams, at the Palestine School in Gaza City, Monday, June 11, 2007. The debilitating violence in Gaza has deeply affected all aspects of life here, but the damage it is causing to children's education has Palestinians worried about the foundation of their society. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) (Hatem Moussa - AP)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Daliya Naji could barely concentrate as she studied for her final exam while Palestinian gunmen battled outside her house all night. Other students barely made it past militant roadblocks to take their tests.

The debilitating violence in Gaza has deeply affected all aspects of life here, but the damage it is doing to children's education has Palestinians worried about their society's foundation.

"I'm a good student, but I feel that my brain is empty," said Naji, 16, whose school stands next to a security headquarters that has been the site of repeated fighting between Hamas and Fatah rivals in recent days.

Traditionally, the 18 days of the final exam period, which began Monday, are akin to a national holiday in Gaza. Education is held in such high esteem that nearly everybody works to make sure the streets are calm so students can study.

Few weddings, with their accompanying noisy celebrations, are scheduled during exam time, and street hawkers who use megaphones to advertise their wares face fines.

In a last-ditch effort to ease students' concerns as exams start, Hamas and Fatah agreed to a cease-fire early Monday, according to Ziad Sarafandi, who represented Fatah at the truce talks. But fighting persisted, with the Palestinian government headquarters in Gaza City coming under fire while the Cabinet was meeting inside and gunmen firing at Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's house.

"This is shameful for our people," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said during a visit to a school in the West Bank on Monday. "I call on everyone to stop this immediately, not only because of the examinations, but also for our people to live a normal life."

Both Fatah and Hamas blamed each other for the inability to halt the fighting _ even for a day _ while students take exams.

"People who throw a man whose hands are bound from the roof of an 18-story building don't really care about exams," Fatah spokesman Maher Mikdad said, referring to an incident Sunday in which Hamas militants threw a member of Abbas' presidential guard from a building.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Fatah militants of hindering students' education.

"They are preventing it because it is a national project, and they want to destroy all the national projects," he said.

Militants have also ratcheted up their rocket fire at Israel, drawing increasingly harsh Israeli retaliation that has added to the chaos in the poverty-stricken coastal territory.