🔗 Share this article

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as curiosity displaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our existence: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – children who talked about becoming medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with starvation, eviction and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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