🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, stating they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity displaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – children who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, educators, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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