🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, intermission, 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 education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the stars through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents deserve literature, schools and safety. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always thought learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our existence: security, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, instructors, helpers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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