🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the stars through the openings of my temporary home and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, saying they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to texts, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure hunger, eviction and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several