Image source

If Gaza was a big plain field, which it might become soon, the IDF would be this

Image source

This machine turns its head and you're caught once it turns back, you'd be immediately shot or blown off if you're doing anything it deems wrong. Wrong like what? Well, wrong like being a journalist reporting what is happening in Gaza in any way that doesn't adhere to the mainstream.

Victims of those are plenty, like Shireen Abu Akleh, and more recently Issam Abdallah, and of course, my good friend, Refaat Alareer. But this is the present, and I already have a whole series talking about the past, so let's talk about the future in this post.

The future is in the hands of children, it needs to be neutered in both meanings as the body needs food and the mind needs education, we'll mention the first throughout this post, but let's focus on the latter, education. You need education for your future we always hear, but what if that future doesn't exist in any form? This post is about the life of a school student in Gaza.

Ahmed Shabat

The first lesson isn't really a lesson, it's just a setting to get to know each other. Starting with this kid in front of the class, Ahmed Shabat. Ahmed grew up in a city filled with war among his parents and 2 brothers, he learned to walk and talk. He loved going to watch football matches with his uncle at a coffee shop where he told his uncle that he dreams of becoming a football player.

During one of the IDF strikes, his home was hit. At the time, his uncle, Ibrahim, got wind of two children unidentified at a hospital, he ran only to find them to be Ahmed and his younger brother, Omar. Ahmed and Omar were the sole survivors of the strike their older brother along with their parents.

Ibrahim didn't cower from the responsibility and took both brothers after learning that despite the explosion taking Ahmed 20 meters away, he made it with minor injuries.

Ibrahim, along with the kids had to walk toward the safe area along with thousands of people, leaving behind their homes and memories. They found a refugee camp and soon enrolled the children in a UN school. Hard life, but this sounds like a new dawn for the two children. However, the bombing resumed not only in the area struck before but also in the new "safe" area, the place where refugees went.

Another shock came to Ibrahim as he saw the UN school getting bombed and went to see Ahmed, with both his feet dismembered, crawling toward him with open arms seeking rescue. Ahmed Shabat, a four-year-old whose life was supposed to begin with an exploration of the world and dreams awaiting him no longer dreamt of becoming a football player, but only to replace his legs with prostheses legs.

Ahmed Shabat is a true story, and those around him in class aren't so different. No school, no certificate, unless we're speaking of a death certificate.

Gaza has 803 schools, they're meant to educate 600 students. To accommodate all these students, schools operate in shifts, morning and day, some schools operate in three shifts. But, that was before, nowadays, schools are open 24 hours because they're now serving as shelters for the refugees. No signs of life in these schools, no beds or blankets to shelter from the cold and the students who once left their families for school are now looking at their families at school.

The school desks that once carried the responsibility of keeping them enlightened with education are now responsible for keeping them safe from war as well. The student whose biggest problem is supposed to be his pen running out of ink now his problem is running out of places to hide. Classrooms in Gaza are now filled with children and women of all ages, sleeping in small spaces.

But what about the men? The men sleep outside, like a form of guards hoping to protect the schools from the next air strike. Their eyes are on the school gate and ears listening closely for planes in the sky, their hands and feet are shaking because of the cold.

Have you ever tried to imagine what is it like for so many people to live in one small and confined space? You wouldn't be able to unless you studied math in Gaza.

Math

Have you ever seen the joy of a parent when their kid answers the question 2 × 2 with 4? In Gaza 2 × 2 equals 0 during air strikes. In Gaza, multiplication is complicated as it doesn't get you the same results you would from regular multiplications. The multiplication is complicated because it includes world-banned numbers, like numbers of banned weapons. I.E. the use of white phosphorus. But, where's the proof of work?

Well, thousands of students live in horrible health conditions and suffer from different epidemics and spread diseases. Does the international community care? Gaza is the only place in the world where you need a calculator not for education, but to find time to enter the toilet.

Let's do a quick calculation, Gaza's schools have one toilet per 100 students, bear in mind many families are forced to live there, and under the assumption that people would take 5 minutes to use the toilet, so, with 99 people lining up ahead of you, you'd be able to use the toilet once every 9 hours. By the way, we are talking about a toilet that lacks water and all health needs.

But, this begs the question, do Palestinians even need toilets? After all, they can't really find food to consume to begin with. This takes us to our next class.

Science

Do you know that food deprivation, if it lasts long enough, could lead to Colitis, Ulcers, Helicobacter pylori, and Hepatitis? Do you know that 9% of the world's population suffers from food deprivation? Do you know that in Gaza, the percentage of the population suffering from food security has reached 100%? Israel's air strikes have officially destroyed the last-ever bakery in Gaza. There's literally no source of bread in Gaza.

With that, families are sharing food with each other, assuming they can find any food. This takes us to another issue.

Assuming food is there, how would Gazans cook it? Gazans are literally burning their clothes to cook food after Israel completely cut off the gas and refused most external aid from reaching Gazans. So, Christopher Nolan is wrong as far as Gazans are concerned because they either die of starvation or die of cold, assuming the most humane army in the world won't be killing them with dumb bombs

Social Studies

Don't worry, it's a half day since we're joined by tens of new families seeking shelter, so this is the last class of the day.

Gaza has over 3,000 dead students. The conditions where these students live make them a target. A child growing up in this fear-of-death environment really takes out all the skills you could have. In the last 16 years, there's never been enough food, not a day without the electricity getting cut living constantly under the sound of flying drones. If they make it to school, escaping from fear of death at home, they live in fear of their death at school, while their parents keep a hand on their hearts fearing that death as well.

Even this school issue solved? Then what? All the students know it will happen again, and all the families living in those schools know that even if they had survived this wave of air strikes and even if they somehow build a new one, it's only a matter of time before a new strike is ordered and the cycle of immigration continues. It's an empty circle for people in Gaza.

The concentration of people in shelters like schools allowed Israeli air fighters to literally end entire families per strike. Your family and its entire history can be wiped out in case you took shelter in any of the 270 schools that have been targetted so far, entire generations, many talented and hard-working students, future doctors, engineers, sportsmen, or even blacksmiths, carpenters, all where wiped with one push of a button.

1% death in any population is too much, but 1% of children's death is a human catastrophe.

The Bell Rings

This might be a moment of joy for many students as they get to leave school, but not in Gaza, In many instances just means that those students would remain in class as their families join them, many families sharing small classes. Morning lines are replaced with lines for water, bread, gas, medicine, and anything those people can put their hands on. And it could at any second turn into a line for death.

That was school lessons from Gaza, just a quick skim at the life of a student living in Gaza.

Previous Parts

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 1: Tantura
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 2: Protecting The Israel Mythology
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 3: The Israel Foundation Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 4: The "One People" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 5: The "Zionism is Judaism" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 6: The "Land Without a People" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 7: The "Independence" Myth (Chapter 1)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 8: The "Independence" Myth (Chapter 2)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 9: The "Independence" Myth (Chapter 3)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 10: The "Independence" Myth (Final Chapter)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 10: The "David vs Goliath" Myth (1/2)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 11: The "David vs Goliath" Myth (2/2)
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Final Part: The "Only Democracy in the Middle East" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Responding to Arguments and Concerns
The Tragic Story of Israel