🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study online. Other times, I go to a tiny space where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: security, residences, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – minors who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, teachers, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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