🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That morning, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the stars through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, saying they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children merit texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who spoke of becoming physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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