Hundreds of thousands of children walk through the streets of the Gaza Strip to return to classes after five months of shutdown — though authorities said they were ready to close schools again if coronavirus cases spike.

Pupils mingled freely before heading into playgrounds for roll call and filing into classrooms. At one school in the northern Jabalia refugee camp, teachers wearing face masks welcomed children and offered to sanitise their hands.

Gaza, mostly cut off from the world by an Israeli-led blockade, has not recorded any Covid-19 cases in the towns and refugee camps where around two million Palestinians live.