🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study online. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and families. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative 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, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of amusement, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, residences, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

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