🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. 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.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve texts, learning environments and security. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, homes, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive live with malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several