🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our lives: safety, residences, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, educators, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several