In late May, in the al-Jerjawi school massacre, the Zionist occupation bombed the shelter rows and tents in the school courtyards. People were burned alive, broadcast for the world to see. The five-year-old girl, Ward Sheikh Khalil, ran among the burning corpses of her family and emerged from the flames.
What did this child do to be left running on an empty stomach? During nights of famine, surrounded by corpses and the stench of blood, how will she recount the greatest catastrophe of her life? How can you tell the world that the occupation not only deprived me of my family but burned them alive—hungry and innocent—for no reason at all? Is there a child anywhere in the world who has endured what this little girl has witnessed?
Watching footage from the al-Jerjawi massacre, I was reminded of what I myself had gone through at another school-turned-shelter.
While I was volunteering at al-Nasr School as an English teacher and children’s entertainer, I decided to dedicate one class to psychological relief—an opportunity to simply listen to the students. These children are among the most marginalized in Gaza. No one hears them, nor cares about their dreams or fears. They have grown up finding themselves in degrading shelters, where they queue for food, search for firewood to break and burn, or stand in line just to get water.
I asked each student, “What do you want to be in the future?”
I expected answers like, “I want to be an engineer,” but their responses were heartbreaking, unlike the dreams of children elsewhere in the world.
One five-year-old student, Aya al-Dalu, told me, “When I grow up, I will eat rice with a lot of meat.”
That answer shattered me. It’s not the children’s fault that their greatest hope is simply to live long enough for the famine to end so they can eat meat.
At that time, in August 2024, Gaza’s north was cut off from the south, and there was no meat at all in the north. The Zionist army had issued a message to support the displacement plan: “Whoever wants food—peace be upon him—should go to the south of the valley.” The mothers remained in northern Gaza, while their children spoke of eating meat when they grew up.
My three-year-old nephew, Omar, saw sardines for the first time after a year and a half of war and, pointing to the fish, said, “This is a snake.”
Is there a child in this world who doesn’t recognize fish — or even fruit?
On August 4, 2024, after I finished volunteering, I stepped out of the classroom into the garden of al-Nasr School. I was composing Baligh Hamdi’s melodies in my mind. When I was overwhelmed by language and unable to express what I was feeling, I turned to music to pour out my sorrow. I saw my students playing in the school garden. I called to them, “Come on, students, go to your families. Classes are over.” But they pleaded, “Please, Miss, let us play a little longer together.”
Just five minutes later, I heard the sound of a missile striking the building directly next to the garden. Even now, I can still hear that exact sound in my mind. In that moment, I collapsed to the ground and screamed. I screamed again, clutching my body, feeling my arms and legs in panic, terrified they might be gone.
When the missile hit, the place turned to fog. I couldn’t see anything, not even my students. Some of them, with their small, fragile bodies, were flung into the sky. Others had survived only because they’d left the school moments before the bombing.
The school administration started shouting, “Go outside and see who’s alive and who’s not!” I stood up and ran. My face had gone pale from shock, and I was completely drained and terrified.
My uncle arrived by car to take me to my family. We stopped at the hospital along the way, bringing injured people with us, including the daughters of a nurse who had been at the school. We didn’t tell them their mother was still buried under the rubble.
More than two months after surviving the al-Nasr School massacre, I finally found the courage to return and see the site where I had almost died. I couldn’t believe I had been so close to the building and survived — even the school principal told me, “Nour, how were you only 600 meters from the missile and survived, while students who were farther away died? It’s truly a miracle.”
Now I ask myself — did I survive so I could tell you what happened in those moments?
That day, I saw my student, Nour al-Din Miqdad, who had lost his entire family in the school bombing. He had stepped out to buy something, unaware that when he returned, no one would be left. His family had been eating what would be their final meal. I remember how his mother would come to me and say, “Nour is smart, but he’s stubborn and difficult. His teachers were patient with him. The war has changed him.”
After the bombing, Nour spent weeks embracing the graves of his mother, father, and siblings. What will he do now? How can he bear what the war has done to him? It stole everything, and he is alone now.
By: Nour Abo Aisha
Source: Mondoweiss
