🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity replaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, homes, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now lost – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience hunger, eviction and weariness – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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