🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, schools and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our lives: protection, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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