🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children merit books, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My classroom was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, teachers, aid workers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several