.jpg)
One early morning this past fall, I was jolted awake by the radio from the other room. My mother sat and listened to the latest updates, as she does every day. But instead of the usual breaking news or the latest orders from the Israeli military instructing people to leave their homes, or the names of the newest victims of Israel's actions in a brutal war, I heard the giddy voices of young Palestinian students in the occupied West Bank being interviewed about the start of the new school year.
Their words were filled with expectation and hope — excitement at the prospect of seeing friends, eagerness to learn new things, to meet new teachers. For them the day marked the beginning of a new chapter in their educational journey.
As happy as I was for these students, though, hearing their voices deepened a sense of pain within me. After all, it’s been 15 months since I last stepped into a classroom. Because here in Gaza, the concept of a "regular school year" has been stolen from us. Instead of looking forward to learning and growing, we have been trapped in an endless state of terror, displacement, hunger, and death.
.jpg)
I live in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. I was born in 2005 and, so far, have already survived four Israeli military onslaughts and a crippling, illegal siege and naval blockade that is almost as old as I am. Those wars are no longer measured in days or months but by the years we spend away from school, away from ambition, away from a normal life.
Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza, which was launched following Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, with more than 14,000 others missing and presumed dead, and driven nearly the entire population from our homes. It hasn’t just destroyed lives, homes, and infrastructure; it has crushed our dreams, hopes, and education. It has devastated our educational system including my university, the Islamic University of Gaza, and many educational centers, like the Oxford English Centre, where I had just enrolled in October 2023 before the war broke out.
In what the United Nations has described as “scholasticide,” almost all the schools and universities we used to attend have been destroyed or irreparably damaged as part of an Israeli military campaign that Palestinians, the UN and other rights experts consider genocidal — and one the Biden administration armed and funded. Many schools have since become shelters for those who have lost their homes to bombs. Classrooms that were once filled with the laughter of students and their passion for learning are now filled with endless stories of sorrow and tragedy.
And though Israel’s war on Gaza may have stopped — at least temporarily — with the announcement of the ceasefire — the trauma of the last year and a half is profound. While my peers in the rest of Palestine and the world are a year ahead in their studies, it’s as if time stopped for us in Gaza. Each day was just a repeat of the one before, in which our sole goal was survival.
.jpg)
A task as simple as fetching water became a monumental challenge. As Oxfam detailed in a July 2024 report, Israel’s destruction of water and sanitation sites and cutting off Gaza’s external water supply led to a 94% reduction in the water we have available to us. Cooking gas became nearly impossible to find. Instead, we resort to lighting fires with wood, and sometimes even our clothes, to cook simple meals that barely nourish us. Israel weaponized starvation against Gaza’s population, as Human Rights Watch has documented, severely limiting the entry of food supplies and seizing or destroying the majority of farmland and bakeries. With the temporary ceasefire in effect, Israel is now allowing more food to enter, but otherwise it's as if the war never ended. People are looking for shelter and searching for loved ones buried beneath the ruins. Life continues to be a struggle for survival.
Even before the events of the past 15 months, we could not live a normal life in Gaza. Most Palestinians here, like myself, are refugees whose families were expelled from their homes in what became southern Israel in 1948, a defining event Palestinians refer to as the Nakba. We have suffered under violent military rule and apartheid ever since.
I used to dream of continuing my college education in English literature, but now the best I can do is study alone using whatever resources are on hand. War doesn’t just kill the body; it kills the dreams we work so hard to achieve.
I still hold on to the hope that one day I will wake up early, drink my coffee, wear my colorful dress, and go to school full of passion and love. Because in Gaza, education is not just a right — it is our hope for a better tomorrow, and hope is all we have left.
The future seems bleak: Gaza has been reduced to rubble and Palestinians here face the monumental task of rebuilding their homes and lives from scratch, yet again When it comes to my education, it feels like a huge uncertainty looms around me. After all, there are no schools or universities left. Will I complete my studies online and if so, for how long? Will the new U.S. administration continue to allow Israel to operate with impunity, providing a free flow of weapons and money?
Based on Trump's first term, things will be just as bad or worse for Palestinians over the next four years. Already, he’s rescinded sanctions that the Biden administration placed on a handful of extremist Israeli settlers responsible for violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, appointed fanatical supporters of the Israeli right to senior positions in his administration, and issued an executive order intended to suppress activism for Palestinian human rights in the US by conflating anti-Zionism, or opposition to the religious nationalist ideology Israel is based on, with anti-Semitism, threatening to deport foreign students who protest Israel’s actions.
Nothing seems easy or certain. What lies ahead is the real unknown.
Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take
