🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions 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 darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, volunteers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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