Schools in Gaza forcing girls to wear veils

Palestine Press Agency quotes a report from Al Hayat about schools in Gaza forcing Muslim girls to wear veils.

The 16-year old [girl] cried bitterly when her teacher at her new high school asked her to go to the office of school director. It is the first day in the first secondary (X) in her school, which she moved to after finishing her studies in a junior high school affiliated with UNRWA in Gaza City.

She recounted to the London newspaper Al Hayat: "It was a shock for me to be expelled from the classroom by the teacher, and she asked me to go to the school administration." She felt very insulted, but what made ​​her feel more offended was the discriminatory way that the teacher asked her: "Are you Muslim or Christian? Why not wear a jilbab and hijab?" The teacher said that these were the instructions of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip.

This scene repeated itself with other students suffering degrading and discriminatory treatment, witnesses told Al Hayat. The Director of allowed Christian students (after verification of their religion) not to wear veils and robes.

The article goes on to say that Hamas is justifying its Islamicization of Gaza in order to slow down increasing fundamentalist Salafi influence.