For two full years, my children were deprived of education — not because of neglect or poverty, but because the war decided that school was no longer a priority, that a classroom could become a target, and that a blackboard could turn into rubble. During that time, I found myself transforming from a mother trying with everything she had to keep her five children alive into an emergency teacher. I try to rebuild what the war has destroyed in their young minds.
Throughout two years of war, repeated displacement, and moving from one tent to another, I tried to compensate my children for the education they had missed. I explained mathematics from memory, reviewed the alphabet with them, and wrote letters on torn scraps of paper or on the back of aid boxes. Every time, I asked myself: Is what I am doing enough? Can a child truly learn amid all this destruction?
After the ceasefire in Gaza last October, I felt enormous pressure to move my family outside the Strip to provide better education for my children. But I still believe the future holds positive possibilities, and leaving our homeland is not an ideal option.
Around 90 percent of schools have been destroyed in Gaza
My dilemma is not an individual case. In Gaza, around 90 percent of public schools and UNRWA schools have been destroyed. This means an entire generation suddenly found itself without classrooms, without education, and without teachers. In the absence of official alternatives, individual initiatives emerged, led by volunteer teachers who turned tents into temporary classrooms.
These education tents resemble schools in name only. They are worn-out fabric tents with no solid floors, no proper blackboards, and no desks. Children sit on the ground or on stones, while teachers explain lessons orally without books or notebooks. Sometimes entire lessons are read aloud because there is not enough paper for everyone. Yet the tents fill every morning with children, because they do not want to forget what it feels like to learn.
The “Distinguished Tomorrow” school
When I heard about the “Distinguished Tomorrow” school west of Gaza City, established inside tents on the ruins of a completely destroyed public school, I felt as if I was seeing the end of a long tunnel. I took my children there, and there I realised that what we are experiencing is a shared story. More than 250 boys and girls are enrolled in this temporary school. All of them are displaced, living in shelters west of the city, and have lost years of education due to the war.
In one of the tents used as a classroom, principal Shorouq Aziz stood watching the children as they recited letters together. She says: “We know these tents cannot replace a real school, but they prevent a complete interruption of education. When a child is cut off from education for a long time, they lose not only knowledge but also motivation and self-confidence.”
She adds, pointing to the tent: “This is not an ideal learning environment, but it is an environment of hope. We are trying to restore a school-like routine: time to sit, time to learn, and a sense of normal life.”
Before the war, children in my country studied scientific, literary, and artistic subjects such as languages, drawing, music, sports, and technology. Today, in this school, students receive only four basic subjects: Arabic, English, mathematics, and science. Arts, music, and technology have become luxuries that cannot be provided under these harsh conditions.
When Aziz speaks about needs, she is painfully clear: “We need the simplest things: blackboards, desks, stationery, notebooks, books, and more stable tents that protect children from heat and cold. Even teachers work voluntarily without any support. Sometimes we have to share a single pen among several children.”
A silent form of resistance
As I watched my children inside the tent, I realised that education here is not just a lesson, but a silent form of resistance. All the children sit attentively despite the noise, and despite the rain that leaks into the tents during lessons due to their poor quality.
Still, these tents remain a temporary solution. A tent cannot replace a school, and an entire generation cannot build its future on emergency measures. What is happening in Gaza is a systematic destruction of education — a crime whose consequences will last for decades unless it is stopped and what the war has destroyed is rebuilt.
The “Distinguished Tomorrow” school is not just an educational initiative; it is a cry. A cry that says supporting an education tent today may prevent the loss of a child tomorrow, and that investing in education, even under the harshest conditions, is an investment in life itself.
As parents, like many here, we want nothing more than for our children to one day return to real classrooms, with real blackboards and notebooks that do not suddenly run out. Until that day comes, these tents remain all we have left — and the last thing that must not be abandoned.
In Gaza, life is not measured by what is available, but by what people try to save despite scarcity.
Education tents, despite all their flaws and fragility, are not a permanent solution, but they are the last line of defence to preserve children’s educational memory. Every missing blackboard and every unavailable notebook is a new gap in the future of a child trying to survive a war they did not choose. The “Distinguished Tomorrow” school stands today at the edge of what is possible.
Its continuation does not require miracles, but rather what makes education possible: simple tools, a safer place, and support that transforms individual efforts into a sustainable path that restores what children have lost.
Fundraising campaign
Faced with this critical reality, I have decided to launch a fundraising campaign to support this school, to provide desks, tables, stationery, and blackboards, and to give these children hope that tomorrow could be better than this fragile reality.
I will use the donations to cover the needs of the students at this school, and I will document these efforts and report on the situation in a future article.
If you would like to donate to support this school with resources, stationery, blackboards, and desks, you can use this link:
https://buy.stripe.com/aFa7sKbnt6dF3e40Is0RG07
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
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