🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve books, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

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

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of recreation, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for relatives fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our reality: safety, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Across this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several