Palestinian Minister Says Tawjihi Exam Will Be Within Reach Of All Students

The Palestinian Minister of Education said this year's Tawjihi (General Secondary) exam will be within reach of all students, describing it as "an exceptionally transparent and realistic exam."

“An empty seat, closed books, and a seating card turned into a picture hanging on the wall of the waiting hall”

Al-Jazeera Net

The minister said the ministry is moving toward implementing the Tawjihi system over two years and that it does not want a student's future to be decided in just ten days of exams.

Al-Jazeera Net

Regarding the Gaza Strip, the minister explained that the ministry will resort to holding the Tawjihi exam electronically if organizing it in the traditional way becomes impossible due to the current circumstances there.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced that the General Secondary Examinations for Gaza Strip students began on June 20, 2026 through the electronic examination system, and its data said about 37,700 students from the Gaza Strip are taking the exams this year out of about 91,000 applicants in Palestine and abroad.

In Gaza, France Palestine Solidarité reported that Sara, an 18-year-old from Zahrat Al-Madain High School, cried after the July 29 Tawjihi results because her home and dreams of a better future were destroyed by Israeli bombardments.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said Israeli occupation authorities continue to escalate their targeting of students in the occupied West Bank during exams, including the arrest of four high school students during the period of the General Secondary Examinations.

The club added that forces arrested, before and during this year, 65 male and female high school students, and it listed detainees including Fajr Ahmed al-Mashni (17) from the town of al-Shuyukh and Salah al-Din Muhammad al-Ezza (18) from the Fawar refugee camp.

France Palestine Solidarité

In the West Bank, Al-Jazeera Net described the 2026 high school exam hall in the Fawar Camp south of Hebron for student Salah al-Azza, saying he was forcibly kept behind the occupation's bars.

Al-Jazeera Net quoted the psychologist Monira Al-Shariha saying that the sudden arrest of a student at this decisive stage triggers a sharp trauma that falls under post-traumatic stress symptoms.

WAFA reported that on July 20, 2023 Israeli occupation forces detained at least 10 Palestinians during attacks on various Palestinian regions, including the arrest of three Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem as they celebrated their success in the General Tawjihi exam.

France Palestine Solidarité said Sara was among the 39,000 Palestinian students in Gaza who were supposed to take the university entrance exam this year but could not, and it reported that at least 450 students have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education.

“The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club says that Israeli occupation authorities continue to escalate their targeting of students in the occupied West Bank, as part of a systematic policy that has touched all levels of education, the latest being the arrest of four high school students during the period of the General Secondary Examinations”

Al-Markaz al-Filastini lil-I'lam

The same report said more than 5,000 other students from different grades have also died in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, as well as more than 260 teachers, and it described dozens of final-year students likely killed in schools turned into shelters.

France Palestine Solidarité stated that since July, Israel has bombed schools 21 times, and it cited the al-Tabin School in the city of Gaza as becoming the cemetery for more than 100 people, the majority of whom were women and children.

The report also said that according to the United Nations, 93% of Gaza’s 560 schools have been destroyed or damaged since October 7, and about 340 have been directly bombed by the Israeli army.

Al-Jazeera Net framed the arrests as part of a deliberate effort to destroy the future of Palestinian students, with the spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Amjad al-Najjar, saying the occupation has followed this approach since 1967 to the present day.