Gaza children pose for photos during their break in the Beit Loliya Boys Elementary School in Gaza City on January 24, 2009. Some 200,000 Gaza children returned to school for the first time since Israel's offensive. [Xinhua]

All schools in the war-battered Gaza Strip reopened on Saturday, a week after Israel ended a 22-day large-scale military offensive on the enclave.

Officials in the Gaza education ministry and the United Nations said that about 200,000 schoolchildren are back to their classrooms. More than 35 schools were used to shelter families who have their homes destroyed and fled it.

UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said that during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations opened 37 schools allover the Gaza Strip to shelter around 50,000 people who have their homes destroyed.

Meanwhile, Abu Hasna welcomed Israel's decision on Friday to lift the ban on the entrance of foreign aids workers to the Gaza Strip. Foreign aids workers were not allowed to enter into Gaza after Israel closed all Gaza crossings.

Aid agencies welcomed the lifting of the restrictions, but warned that the task ahead was "enormous", with vast amounts of building materials alone needed to help rebuild schools, hospitals, mosques, and homes.

Life in the Gaza Strip is gradually getting back to normal, where also stores, banks and nongovernment organizations reopened. Gaza universities have not opened yet, said officials in the Hamas-ruled ministry of education.

Dozens of Hamas police officers, wearing their blue uniform arranged the traffic in Gaza on Saturday, where dozens of workers were seen cleaning up streets and removing the rubble.

Israel carried out an unprecedented military assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008, killing around 1,400 people and injuring 5,500 others.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2009)