🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit texts, schools and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as interest substituted anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain experience hunger, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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