OMAR AL-QATTAA / AFP
The rubble of the Muscat government school in Gaza City.
GAZA – “My daughter should be in the second year of primary school. She was very happy to start school and we were proud of her. Unfortunately, she was only able to attend school for a single month before the war broke out, stealing her joy and her dreams. testifies Riyadh. For the second year in a row, her 7-year-old eldest, Nay, will not be able to go to school.
“My daughter asks questions about her school, her books, her teachers”
“I spend sleepless nights thinking about Nay, who was so happy to go to school », confides Riyad. The thirty-year-old Palestinian, employee of the French NGO Secours Islamique France, has always placed the education of his children as a priority. “ But the war destroyed everything. » First of all, the buildings.
Because if children in Gaza can no longer go to school, it is partly because they no longer exist: according to a report from the human rights organization Al-Mezan cited by Mediapart188 of the 288 UNRWA (UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees) schools were attacked by the Israeli army, and 285 of the 448 public schools were destroyed by bombings. Including the establishment of Dina’s daughter, mother of three children.
A resident of the northern Gaza Strip, the young thirty-year-old ran an educational center before October 7, 2023. Her 10-year-old eldest daughter is also starting her second school year without education. “My daughter asks me questions every day about her school, her books, her teachers. Everything was destroyed. »
Life in tents, looking for resources
To avoid bombings, be safe and access food, water or healthcare resources, many Palestinians are forced to move relentlessly. This is the case of Ryiad and his family, who had to seek refuge in five different towns in the Gaza Strip over the past twelve months, before arriving in Al-Mawassi, ” in Gaza’s largest tent complex, in an agricultural region near the sea ».
He describes months of “intense suffering” under tents which protect neither from heat nor from cold, with risks linked to insects, rodents and scorpions. To continue Nay’s learning, Riyad and his partner managed to find some school textbooks. “When time permits, she revises with her motherhe explains, but the days are full of domestic work, fear and the risk of bombing. We also spend long hours searching for water, especially drinking water. »
It also recounts the difficulties that attempts to keep children learning have faced. “Some initiatives have tried to group children together in tents so as not to forget what they learned before the war, but this has not been very effective. Living conditions in the tents are too difficult, with oppressive heat, and many families have to move constantly. »
Try to keep in touch with your students
In the Deir el-Balah region, where Dina and her family took shelter in a tent, some “education tents” exist. But the thirty-year-old refuses to send her daughter there, out of fear. “All places are exposed to danger”she explains.
An English teacher by profession, she tries with great difficulty to maintain contact with her students.. “I teach English to some via WhatsApp, but the internet is not stable, and most students have no resources to help them. Some don’t have a smartphone. Many of them have died. »
Both Riyad and Dina try to reassure their children as best they can. “I’m doing my best to respond truthfully to Nay and provide some clarity, says the father of two. She understands that she can no longer go to school because of the war, but she does not understand why there is war, which is difficult to explain to her. I always try to reassure her and give her hope that one day the sun will rise and she will go back to school, here in Gaza or elsewhere. »
A “window to the future”
Dina, who also suffered from the lack of care and hospitals for her twins born prematurely a few weeks before the start of the war, noted that “fear takes over” at her eldest. “I am sad that my daughter is being deprived of her right to education, and I worry about her ignorance”she adds.
Ryiad reminds us that the importance of education is not only linked to knowledge. “School, for my daughter and for us, is not only a place of learning, but also a place where she feels safe. It is also a reassuring place which allows us to correct the behavior of the little ones, to teach them how to live and grow in a healthy context. »
Spaces that seem essential for her daughter, who has “miraculously” survived a bombing after being pulled from the rubble of a building she was in. “Education represents a window to the future, and I fear that it will no longer open for my daughter. »
Source: www.huffingtonpost.fr
