🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of play, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as interest substituted apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for households escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – minors who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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