🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist young residents study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity displaced apprehension. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, teachers, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several