🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and question if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, stating they long for education 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 aspired to entering the education field to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I attend a tiny space where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools remaining intact in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the internet enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, volunteers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several