🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice 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 seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit literature, schools and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of play, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every part of our lives: security, residences, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure starvation, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I hear from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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