🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I lost my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, 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 world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of dreaming of doctors, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I hear from a few of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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