🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth merit texts, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure hunger, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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