A young student, 12, Khan Younis
It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.
I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.
Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.
Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.
At night, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.
I once envisioned entering the education field to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.
When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I visit a tiny space where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced education could transform society.
The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.
To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents deserve texts, learning environments and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.
An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp
I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.
Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.
I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.
Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.
My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our existence: security, homes, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.
Numerous of my pupils are now lost – children who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who remain live with malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.
At times, when the online access enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.
All over the region, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.
Many of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several
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