🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My classroom was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for families running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: security, homes, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – children who talked about dreaming of doctors, creatives, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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