Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis
For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.
I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.
Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.
Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.
At night, I observe the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.
I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.
When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced learning could change the world.
Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.
To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.
Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp
I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.
Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.
I always believed learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.
Laughter always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.
My educational institution became a safe haven for families escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.
Many of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned becoming physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.
Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.
Throughout the region, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.
A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several
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