The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) released its 2026 biennial report documenting at least 8,566 attacks on schools and universities during 2024, alongside documented instances of military forces occupying educational facilities. That figure is a jump of more than 40% compared to the prior two-year reporting cycle.

The report also tracks a 20% rise in attacks and military use over the most recent two-year window, according to Education Cannot Wait. These numbers aren't saying the same thing twice. The 40% figure captures raw incident growth in a single year; the 20% reflects the trend across the full two-year span. Both point in the same direction.

Three conflict zones account for the highest attack counts: Palestine, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, per a ReliefWeb summary released in June 2024. But the context behind each conflict differs sharply. In Gaza and the West Bank, intense military operations concentrated in densely populated areas with many schools have driven the Palestinian totals. Ukraine's numbers reflect sustained bombing campaigns deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure—schools appear consistently on those target lists. The DRC's contribution stems from multiple overlapping conflicts across the country. The TRACE Data Portal shows over 1,000 recorded incidents in DRC between 2020 and 2023 alone, concentrated in provinces like Ituri, North Kivu, Mai-Ndombe, and Tanganyika.

How GCPEA counts attacks is important for understanding what these numbers actually mean. Their Attacks on Education dataset uses a verification framework—incidents are logged only after corroboration from multiple sources. That means the real frequency of attacks is almost certainly higher than what the data show. Verified counts in conflict zones function as a floor beneath reality, not a ceiling.

This method of counting conservatively makes the 40% jump significant. Better reporting networks, improved open-source verification tools, and more NGO staff in conflict areas all improve detection rates over time. But an increase of this magnitude—concentrated in three of the world's most heavily monitored conflicts—signals genuine intensification of harm to education systems, not simply better record-keeping.

Separate from direct attacks, schools can also be occupied by armed groups or military forces. When this happens, those schools lose legal protection under international humanitarian law and often become targets themselves, creating a cascading problem. Over 120 countries have signed the Safe Schools Declaration, a voluntary commitment to avoid these practices. But countries that haven't signed—and armed non-state groups operating in DRC, Gaza, and eastern Ukraine—fall outside that agreement or ignore it entirely.

What emerges from the Education Under Attack 2026 data is a pattern: schools are fixed targets in every conflict zone—visible, unchanging locations, typically the largest public buildings in their communities. When they're destroyed, the damage extends far beyond rubble: child development suffers, families become displaced, and economic recovery stalls for generations. For humanitarian workers, development organizations, and those working on justice after conflict, the GCPEA figures set the baseline for counting reconstruction needs and measuring accountability going forward.