🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth merit texts, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of recreation, art, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households running from the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our reality: safety, homes, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several