🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

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 halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and families. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit books, learning environments and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest substituted anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now dead – minors who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, educators, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several