🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth merit literature, learning environments and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every aspect of our existence: protection, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several