🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve literature, educational facilities and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

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

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity replaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in the region now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every aspect of our reality: security, homes, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – children who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several