'We seek action, not sympathy'.
A young student, 12, al-Mawasi
For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.
I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.
Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.
Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.
At night, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.
I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.
When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.
Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.
To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to books, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.
'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.
An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp
I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.
Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.
I always thought learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of play, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.
Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.
My school became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: safety, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.
A significant number of my learners are now lost – children who talked about becoming physicians, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.
At times, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.
All over this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.
Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several
