🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and kin. I lost my family member, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve literature, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, art, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every part of our lives: security, residences, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Across this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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