GAZA CITY, Gaza: A US charity operating schools in Gaza plans to use artificial intelligence to monitor classroom conversations and identify language it considers hateful or encouraging violence.

The proposal has raised concerns about privacy, safety, and who should control education in the Palestinian territory after three years of war.

The founder of Gaza Children Village outlined the plan during a webinar last month. The charity says it wants to ensure teachers follow a curriculum that promotes peace and tolerance.

However, Palestinian organizations, advocacy groups and at least one of the charity's partners have raised ethical and privacy concerns about recording classroom discussions and using AI to assess what teachers and students say.

There is no indication that the charity intends to share the recordings with outside organizations. However, fears about the misuse of surveillance technology remain strong in Gaza, where Israel's military has used AI to analyze intercepted communications and identify suspicious speech as part of its efforts to select targets for air strikes.

It remains unclear when the classroom monitoring will begin, which words or statements the system will flag, and whether teachers, students and their families have been informed about the proposal.

Charity Founder Wants to Change Attitudes

Dr David Hasan, a neurosurgeon born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, founded Gaza Children Village. He now teaches at Duke University's medical school in Durham, North Carolina.

Hasan developed the idea after volunteering at hospitals in Gaza during the war. He said he wanted to help end generations of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

He has said that he grew up with negative views of Jews and Israelis and only encountered different perspectives after attending college in the United States. He wants children in Gaza to learn about other viewpoints from an early age.

The charity has raised much of its funding from individual donors, including American Jewish supporters. It says it works with aid organizations and hospitals in North America, Israel and Europe.

Its schools, known as Academies of Hope, provide students with meals, medical assistance and psychological care. The first school opened last summer.

The schools mainly follow the Palestinian Authority's curriculum, but Hasan has said that material he considers to glorify violence or encourage anti-Israel and antisemitic beliefs has been removed.

Hasan declined to comment for the report or provide examples of the curriculum changes.

A 2026 report by the US Government Accountability Office examined textbook content in Gaza that the United Nations had identified as problematic. 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 protesting in support of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

During last month's webinar with humanitarian organizations, Hasan defended the proposed approach, saying, "I know it's controversial, but trust me, it's the only way we feel for us to survive and deliver this curriculum."

Concerns Over Surveillance and Control

Gaza Children's Village is not the first organization to struggle to change educational material in Palestinian schools.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has also tried to adjust the Palestinian Authority curriculum to remove content that it considers inconsistent with neutrality, nonviolence and non-discrimination. However, a US Government Accountability Office report said teachers and local communities resisted these efforts.

The proposed AI monitoring has caused particular concern because of the widespread fear of surveillance in Gaza after years of conflict with Israel.

Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst covering Israel and the Palestinian territories at the International Crisis Group, said the extensive use of surveillance had left many Palestinians afraid that their words and actions could be used against them.

Critics of the charity's educational approach argue that Palestinians should have the right to decide what their children learn. They also question the charity's accountability to Palestinian authorities and UN agencies that have managed Gaza's schools for many years.