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  UN official slams Israel for blocking textbooks
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ContributorPenguin 
Last EditedPenguin  Feb 10, 2009 02:09am
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News DateTuesday, February 10, 2009 08:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionThe top U.N. official in Gaza criticized Israel on Monday for blocking the shipment of paper to print textbooks for a new human rights curriculum that will be taught to children in all grades in the Palestinian territory.

Israel also has refused to allow 12 truckloads of notebooks into Gaza as well as plastic sheeting which is turned into plastic bags to distribute food that the U.N. provides to some 900,000 people, John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which helps Palestinian refugees, said in a videoconference with reporters at U.N. headquarters.

He said 60 percent of the textbooks needed in Gaza have not been printed, so children don't have the material they need to study.

Ging said he was "extremely frustrated" at Israel's refusal to allow paper into Gaza, "not least because we have a new human rights curriculum which everybody here is very excited to teach the children."

The human rights courses are modeled on those developed by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, with input from the human rights community in Gaza, he said. They will be taught by specialist human rights teachers in every school, and human rights organizations in Gaza will evaluate the teachers' performance.
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