🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to reveal 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 amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out 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 learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation 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 seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, learning environments and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: security, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who spoke of becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure hunger, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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