🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they miss school 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 dreamed of entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned becoming doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience hunger, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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