GAZA, (PIC)
“I am an academic, and if the occupiers attack my home, I will confront them with a marker, even if it’s the last thing I do,” were not just silent words left by the Palestinian academic Rafat Al-Araeer after his martyrdom; they have become a life philosophy embraced by those dedicated to the mission of promoting education, including teachers, writers, and volunteers in Gaza and across Palestine. Their aim is to illuminate the path of knowledge against the darkness of ignorance that the ruthless Israeli aggression seeks to impose on the new generation, especially children.
Despite the explicit and barbaric goal declared by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of the ruthless aggression on Gaza, openly stating his intention to treat it similarly to how Germany was treated after World War II, aiming for a cultural change to alter the beliefs of Palestinians, particularly the children, and eliminate the idea of eradicating the occupation state from their education, unknown soldiers and the frontline defenders of our culture persist in their heroic efforts. Despite the blockade, destruction, resource scarcity, and the difficult conditions, they continue their mission to educate the children of Gaza. They face the systematic targeting of educational institutions such as schools, universities, and mosques.
Resistance through knowledge
“The resistance formed in Palestine is not only with weapons but also with knowledge, culture, and the preservation of heritage, survival, and existence,” emphasizes educational expert Nour Al-Din Nadim. He acknowledges the continuous resilience of the Palestinian people against targeted attacks and direct attempts at marginalization by the “Zionist enemy”, who seeks to destroy the educational system systematically.
Nadim affirms that Israel’s brutality, its tyranny, and its targeting of the education system in a systematic manner, along with a clear and direct process of marginalization, aim to erase the Palestinian people’s culture, identity, and civilization. “The enemy seeks to impose Zionist agendas and ideologies for acceptance of Israel and coexistence with it,” he clarified.
He stresses that a dedicated army of teachers and volunteers in shelters and displacement centers stands against this ongoing conspiracy, carrying the message of knowledge as the first line of defense for the Palestinian people, their identity, and their beliefs.
He notes that these volunteers and teachers continuously engage in “systematic activities to boost morale, provide event-based education, enhance culture, and reinforce the Arab-Islamic heritage among our students in Gaza.”
Nadim points out that “the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza does not only affect food and drink but also touches upon paper, pens, and the technology that serves the entire educational process,” which is the very goal explicitly mentioned by the Prime Minister of the occupation state, calling for a cultural change in the students of Gaza to eliminate the idea of the destruction of the occupation state from their curricula and thoughts.
Volunteers against marginalization and intellectual suppression
Ahmed Abu Samaan is one shining example, wielding the pen and knowledge against the Israeli occupation. He challenges and educates children in shelters in the central and southern regions of Gaza, facing Israel’s hidden war of intellectual suppression, especially targeting children, whose academic year is threatened by the ongoing war.
Abu Samaan states that the Israeli occupation not only fights Palestinians with weapons and missiles but also through intellectual suppression and mind obfuscation. The goal is to create an uneducated generation oblivious to the details of the Palestinian cause. Abu Samaan initiated the establishment of small classrooms for displaced children, targeting the primary school.
He taught Arabic, mathematics, and history, addressing the Israeli war and its attempts to suppress them intellectually. He provided incentives for children to continue studying, even if only to a small extent. The academic year ended before it began due to the Israeli war on Gaza, and there is an urgent need to devise an alternative plan to ensure the continuity of the educational process in the region, which Abu Samaan sees as the biggest challenge to the occupation.
Starting from the school library
The Palestinian teacher Asmaa Mustafa, the recipient of the 2020 Global Teacher Award, began her journey with displaced children inside a school library in Khan Yunis city due to the Israeli war.
Asmaa says, “I was delighted to find hundreds of short stories for children, and I decided to dedicate part of my daily time to the displaced children in the school, compensating them for what they missed in educational facilities, even if only to a small extent.”
She works to enhance the awareness of children about the Palestinian cause and train their minds with distinctive skills to distract them from the sounds of clashes and bombings through educational and meaningful illustrated stories. She states, “What we are experiencing here clearly falls under the policy of the occupying enemy to marginalize the children of Gaza and divert them from the path of knowledge.”
Facing difficulties in accommodating all the school’s children on a daily basis, with thousands of them making it challenging to fit in one room for more than 50 people, she specifies, “To overcome this, I have determined the number of groups of children so that the number of each group does not exceed 30 children.”
Asmaa has created a daily schedule for teaching children and telling them stories. Her initiative includes 1,200 children aged between 5 and 13 years, and she goes further by saying, “Sometimes there are sessions for mothers to provide them with the necessary knowledge to teach their children.”
Asmaa goes beyond that, holding sessions for mothers to equip them with the necessary knowledge to educate their children. She highlights the loss of an entire academic year due to the Israeli war on Gaza and the negative effects of the aggression, emphasizing the urgent need for alternative plans to guarantee the continuation of the educational process.
Loss of an academic year and facing the negative effects of aggression
Educational expert Nour Al-Din Nadim expresses concern about the continuation of the aggression, fearing that students in Gaza may lose an entire academic year. The situation goes beyond that, with the martyrdom of education personnel and students. Nadim warns of the psychological impact of the war on the children of Gaza and its daily reflections as they witness their families’ homes being demolished, and the fact that the world does not intervene.
He points out that many concepts have been distorted among Gaza’s children due to the war, including justice, Arab identity, belonging to the Arab and Islamic nation, and the concept of a unified body. All of this requires the development of parallel curricula such as behavioral education, psychological therapy, and moral reinforcement.
The academic semester started with the beginning of the battle of the Al-Aqsa flood on October 7, preventing hundreds of thousands of students and university students from completing their studies, posing a serious threat to the educational process.
