🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and question if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every aspect of our lives: security, residences, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – youth who talked about dreaming of doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several