🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, schools and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools left standing in the region now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every facet of our lives: security, homes, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who mentioned becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I hear from a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

All over the region, teachers, helpers and charities attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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