🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, saying they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study online. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of recreation, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for families escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every facet of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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