🔗 Share this article

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, 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 forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools still erect in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, residences, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several