🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and relatives. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth merit books, schools and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several