🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I visit a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted fear. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, residences, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I hear from a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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