A young student, twelve, Khan Younis
For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.
I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.
The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.
Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.
At darkness, I observe the stars through the openings of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.
I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.
When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.
Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.
To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.
Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp
I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.
Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.
I always thought instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.
Joy always occupied the area as interest replaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.
My educational institution became a refuge for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our lives: security, homes, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.
Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – children who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.
Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.
Across the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.
Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several
