I am an English teacher in the Gaza Strip. My students are learning the language so they can apply for scholarships to study at universities abroad. It’s one of the few, narrow pathways that exists for them to build a future for themselves – or really to have any hope for the future at all.
I can’t blame them for wanting to leave. Even 10 months after the so-called ceasefire, there’s still no fuel, no cash, no reconstruction, no jobs, no education, no healthcare, no end to Israeli attacks. The genocide has left us with no logical reason to remain here besides our connection to the land, our history, and the idea of home. That was its intent – to permanently displace us and disguise it as a choice.
My students at the private language institute where I teach are between 18 and 25 years old. Their education has been interrupted since October 2023. The secondary schools many of them attended have long since been converted into shelters for the displaced. Universities throughout Gaza have been damaged or entirely destroyed. Like everyone else, they have lived under Israeli bombs and siege, experiencing the effects of violence and forced starvation.
Yet, they have persisted, against all odds, in continuing their education – taking classes remotely, finishing secondary school, and pursuing university degrees. Now, they look at education as a means of escape.
As I teach, I look at my students and think: Who will reconstruct Gaza when everyone leaves? I feel stuck all the time. I want them to live their dreams outside. But, at the same time, am I helping the occupier empty Gaza? It is a question I have no answer to.
Teaching amid destruction
Like other educational buildings in Gaza, the original buildings of the institute where I teach have been turned into a shelter for displaced people. The rooms in our new facility are small and only separated by tarps. My classroom has 15 plastic chairs. Instead of white walls covered in educational posters like a normal classroom, the walls are grey and cracked from bombings.
The lights are always off. There is no electricity to power them. It is difficult to find markers for the whiteboard or ink for pens. Sometimes I use my hands to draw letters in the air. Instructional books are expensive. To buy a single sheet of paper costs $1, a price the language institute cannot afford if it wants to procure as much paper as we need.
Teaching in the dark, and among crowded tent camps, has become normal. What is not normal is how quickly we have learned to accept it all.
Loud noise from a displacement camp nearby filters into the classroom. It is not an ideal environment for learning, but it is what we have. Teaching in the dark, and among crowded tent camps, has become normal. What is not normal is how quickly we have learned to accept it all.
Many of the students also live in tents. They travel long distances to reach my classroom, coming on wooden carts overloaded with people and towed by a car. It’s the main source of transportation that we have when somewhere is too far to walk. Sometimes, the cart detaches and people get injured. When my students arrive late, I know their excuse is valid: “We couldn’t find a ride.”
The cost of lessons is another obstacle. Gaza’s economy is decimated. Jobs are few and far between, and many families ran out of savings long ago. Cash is also scarce because Israel won’t allow new bills to enter the Strip. Payments are made online, but this requires a phone with a charged battery and an internet connection – things not everybody has. If a phone or computer breaks, they are almost impossible to replace.
Despite all these challenges, attendance keeps going up.
The only goal
My goal as an English teacher is to open up the world to my students through language. I graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza with a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 2022, and started working just a few months before 7 October 2023. My institute shut down until the first ceasefire in January 2025, and closed again after it collapsed in March that year, only reopening following last October’s ceasefire.
During the long periods it was closed, I wrote and taught private English lessons to a few ambitious students to keep my career alive.
I always start my first class with a new batch of students with the same question: Why do you want to improve your English? The answers in the months before October 2023 were varied: to study medicine; to be a translator; to travel and discover the world; or just to build a new skill. Now, the answer is always the same: It is the only way to get a scholarship to travel outside Gaza.
There is no mention of applying for a better job, upgrading one’s skills, or having fun. It is just a means to escape and to salvage what remains of their ambitions.
One student recently offered a slightly different variation: “We would like to survive outside Gaza for a better future.” Everyone else nodded in agreement.
There is no mention of applying for a better job, upgrading one’s skills, or having fun. It is just a means to escape and to salvage what remains of their ambitions.
Many students had dreams that were paused or killed by the genocide, but they have refused to wave the white flag. Many were at the top of their classes and dreamed of building their own businesses in Gaza. Some wanted to become doctors or nurses. Now, they all know that their best chance to pursue those dreams is to leave.
Opening the door to leave
My students are encouraged by their parents to apply for scholarships that will support them while they study. Their parents are not dreaming of their children becoming world leaders or rising to the tops of their fields. They simply want them to have a shot at getting a good education and building a future – a future different from their current reality.
However, the number of available scholarship slots is small, and the ones that exist are incredibly competitive. Applying is almost like taking a shot in the dark.
The parents know that Gaza will not be rebuilt and the economy will not recover as long as the blockade continues – and there’s no end in sight. They know that schools and universities will not be reconstructed because the necessary materials are banned. They know that their children have no future here, not because they lack talent or ambition, but because the only thing they are surrounded by is destruction.
In the background, somewhere, is the knowledge that this is what our oppressor wants – to empty Gaza of Palestinians. In the foreground are the endless camps that have replaced our homes, the airstrikes that never truly end, the restrictions placed on our basic necessities, and the suffocation of hope
So my students ask me to teach them how to write emails, personal statements, and essays for their applications. I have them role-play scenarios: One student is the interviewer; the other, the interviewee. They switch places, hoping the practice helps open the door for them to leave.
In the background, somewhere, is the knowledge that this is what our oppressor wants – to empty Gaza of Palestinians. In the foreground are the endless camps that have replaced our homes, the airstrikes that never truly end, the restrictions placed on our basic necessities, and the suffocation of hope. “We would pay with our souls to not have to leave our home, but what would our lives be if we stayed in Gaza under such conditions,” one student recently said.
So, I continue teaching my English classes, day by day, in the dark, without markers, and without paper. The only light my students can see at the end of the tunnel is the scholarship they’ve pinned their futures on. They are driven more by persistence than hope, which are not the same thing. Persistence is what remains when hope has been exhausted.
My students persist because stopping would mean accepting a dreadful fate – the prospect of having no future at all. They know the odds are long, but when they ask me why they should keep trying, I tell them: “Because the alternative is giving up, and this is not a choice you have.”
This article is republished from The New Humanitarian under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Writer and ESL trainer based in Gaza
