🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth are entitled to texts, schools and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our lives: safety, residences, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience hunger, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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