A U.S.-based charity operating schools in Gaza plans to record classroom discussions and use artificial intelligence to identify language it considers “hateful” or “inciting,” citing concerns that teachers could depart from a curriculum designed to promote peace and tolerance.
The proposal, described last month by the founder of Gaza Children Village during a webinar, has raised ethical, safety and privacy concerns among Palestinian and advocacy organizations, as well as at least one group that partners with the charity.
There is no indication that the charity plans to give the recordings to outside parties. Still, concerns about surveillance technology have intensified in Gaza after three years of war. The Israeli military has used artificial intelligence to analyze intercepted communications for suspicious language, including in efforts to identify targets for airstrikes.
Palestinian rights organizations have also criticized the charity’s broader education program, arguing that it is not accountable to the local and U.N. institutions that have traditionally overseen Gaza’s schools. Control of education remains among the many unresolved issues surrounding Gaza’s postwar governance.
It remains uncertain when the monitoring would start, which words or statements the system would flag, and whether teachers, students and their families have been informed of the proposal.
The charity’s founder says he seeks the ‘de-radicalization’ of Gaza
Gaza Children Village was founded and is led by Dr. David Hasan, a neurosurgeon born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents. Hasan now teaches at Duke University’s medical school in Durham, North Carolina.
He developed the charity after volunteering at Gaza hospitals during the war and seeking a way to break what he describes as generations of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Hasan has said he was taught as a child to view Jews and Israelis negatively, and that he encountered different perspectives only after attending college in the United States. He wants children in Gaza to be exposed to those perspectives earlier in life.
The organization has received most of its funding from individual donors, including American Jews. It says it works with aid organizations and hospitals in North America, Israel and Europe. Its schools, known as Academies of Hope, offer food along with medical and psychological services. The first school opened last summer.
The Academies of Hope largely follow the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum, Hasan has said, but exclude material he believes glorifies violence or promotes anti-Israel and antisemitic views.
Hasan declined to comment for this story and did not provide examples of the changes. A 2026 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, however, examined “problematic textbook content” identified by the U.N. in Gaza. The examples included using “the number of martyrs” to teach a mathematical concept, referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and describing a boy who was shot while demonstrating in support of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons—issues Israel has criticized for years.
During last month’s webinar with humanitarian organizations, Hasan said classroom monitoring would help train teachers to follow the curriculum, which he has previously described as focused on “de-radicalization.”
“I know it’s controversial, but trust me, it’s the only way we feel for us to survive and deliver this curriculum,” Hasan said.
Monitoring classrooms opens ‘Pandora’s box’
Gaza Children Village is not the first organization to confront such tensions. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has tried to revise the Palestinian Authority curriculum by removing material it considered inconsistent with neutrality, nonviolence and nondiscrimination. The GAO report said those efforts also faced resistance from teachers and communities.
A Gaza Children Village employee said some teachers and other staff members fear being questioned by Hamas about the curriculum. Others are uneasy about working for an organization backed by Israeli aid groups. The employee spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Two people connected to the charity raised concerns after learning that classrooms might be monitored.
“Cameras to monitor the performance of students and teachers is acceptable. But cameras to silence students and teachers from being able to have a free exchange in a classroom are not acceptable,” said Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American political activist who serves on the charity’s board. Bahbah said he did not know about the proposal and that the board had not discussed it.
With so few schools still functioning in Gaza, Bahbah said the organization’s immediate priority should be bringing more children back into classrooms.
An official from an aid organization that partners with Gaza Children Village said cameras could lead the group to reconsider its relationship with the charity. Using artificial intelligence to scrutinize people’s words opens a “Pandora’s box,” the official said. The person spoke anonymously out of concern that public comments could jeopardize the group’s work in Gaza.
Six current and former teachers at Academies of Hope declined to comment.
The system will flag language deemed ‘hateful’
UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are not in school, and that most schools were destroyed or damaged during the war. The Gaza Children Village says its schools in central and southern Gaza serve thousands of children, many of whom lost parents or other relatives during the war.
Under the plans outlined by Hasan in various communications, recordings of classroom conversations will be analyzed by an AI-powered system to detect “antisemitic,” “inciting” or “hateful” language.
If problematic language is detected, a warning will be sent to Hasan, who can then contact the teacher to understand the context and provide feedback, Hasan said in the September webinar. He said recordings are stored for 72 hours.
The monitoring technology has been tested and the plan is to deploy it in dozens of classrooms, according to a text message Hasan sent sometime before August that was seen by The Associated Press.
In the text, Hasan said the system was created in collaboration with PollyLabs, a New York-based nonprofit that promotes the use of technology to solve problems in crises. PollyLabs says it has had no role in developing or deploying such technology.
Palestinians in Gaza are especially fearful of surveillance technology
Fears about surveillance technology are strong in Gaza after three years of war with Israel’s high-tech army.
“Israel has weaponized information to such a dystopian degree that many Palestinians feel they cannot utter a word, type a thought, or twitch an eye without fearing it could be seized upon,” said Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel and Palestinian Territories analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Groups opposed to the charity’s curriculum say Palestinians are being stripped of their autonomy in deciding what to teach their children.
“It is very concerning, they’re trying to control the minds of new generations,” said Ines Abdel Razek, co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, an advocacy group.
The Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and UNRWA should be supported in rebuilding schools in Gaza, she said. Israel has accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas, a charge the agency denies.
A Palestinian government spokesperson, Mohammad AbuAlrob, says the PA curriculum focuses on tolerance and justice. He said he doesn’t have enough information about the charity’s curriculum to comment on it. But he said using surveillance in classrooms would cross “an important line.”
