My school in Khan Younis refugee camp is one of my favorite places. I had dedicated teachers and a love for learning that education became my life’s work. But beyond the joy of learning, school is a place where we Palestinians are able to connect with those we don’t easily meet: Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Palestinians from our history, and Palestinian Writers, poets and intellectuals who tell the story of our exile. Education is how we knit the fabric of our country together.

Palestinians are known for having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. They are often called the best-educated refugees in the world. Education is both part of our nation’s story and the method by which it is taught.

The annual tawjihi (high school national examination) is a key moment in the Palestinian liberation calendar. Every year, the announcement of tawjihi results triggers widespread celebrations across the country, showcasing and honoring the achievements of top-performing students. This euphoric moment transcends individual success and is a collective affirmation of our students’ perseverance and excellence in the face of relentless challenges.

In the summer of 2024, for the first time since 1967, there will be no tawjihi exams in Gaza. There was no celebration.

Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system has caused immense suffering and despair for hundreds of thousands of children and young people. However, the Palestinians’ desire for education is so persistent that they did not stop studying hard even during the genocide.

When I think of this indomitable spirit, I think of my cousin Jihan, a self-employed civil society worker with a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations. She and her three daughters have been living in a tent in Mawasi for the past 10 months. Her husband is a doctor and their son was forcibly disappeared by the Israeli military during the early stages of the genocide.

Despite the ongoing disaster, she and her daughters were determined to help students get an education despite the harsh conditions they were living in a displacement camp. With the help of solar panels, they set up a small charging station and a hotspot where anyone can charge their devices and use the internet in exchange for a small fee.

Two of their regular visitors were relatives of my husband: Shahed, a multimedia student, and her brother Bilal, a medical student. They studied at Al-Azhar University and Al-Aqsa University respectively, but the Israeli army destroyed both universities. Last year, they joined an online learning program launched by Gaza’s academic authorities to help 90,000 university students complete higher education.

Shahed and Bilal told me they had to walk for hours to get to Jihan’s charging station so they could consult their course notes. They hugged their families tightly every time they left their tents and embarked on their journey, knowing they might not come back. Their parents are worried, especially Bilal, because young people are often targeted by drone strikes. To ensure his safety, Shahed sometimes travels alone, bringing her and her brother’s phones to charge and download coursework.

The lines were long, with hundreds of young people waiting in line to get enough power to charge their laptops or mobile phones. The network signal is weak, so the download speed is very slow. The entire process sometimes takes a full day.

As the eldest daughter, Shahed dreamed of graduating, making her parents proud and bringing a ray of light to their dark world. Her father was recently diagnosed with colon cancer, and the family now faces another level of fear and loss given the collapse of the health system and the genocide.

Shahed told me that she firmly believed that, in some way, through the small victory of graduation, she could change this harsh reality. She was fully aware of the risks. “Every step I took, I wondered if I could come back. My dream was to finish my degree, graduate and get a job to help my family,” she told me.

“I’ve seen people burned, disfigured, vaporized, and even found by stray animals. I’ve seen body parts hanging from wires, on rooftops, transported in animal-pulled carts, or carried on shoulders. I pray I don’t die like this .I had to die with my mother to say goodbye and be buried with dignity,” she added.

Mass killings of students and attacks on schools or universities are a tragedy anywhere. But in Palestine, education is more than a right or a dream, and such attacks target our national identity.

Israel is well aware of this and destroying Gaza’s education system is part of its long-term strategy to eliminate Palestinian identity, history and intellectual vitality.

My generation has also experienced Israel’s attacks on education, albeit far less deadly and destructive. Period 1987 to 1993 first uprisingIsrael subsequently closed all universities in Gaza and the West Bank as a form of collective punishment, depriving tens of thousands of students of their right to higher education. At the same time, Israel imposed a military curfew that kept us confined to our homes from 8pm to 6am. Israeli soldiers were ordered to shoot anyone who violated the rules. Schools were raided, attacked, and sometimes closed for weeks or months.

Despite the violence and destruction, education became an act of resistance. Like the other 18,000 tawjihi students in Gaza in 1989, I studied tirelessly. I got the high grades I needed to be able to study for a prestigious degree, which usually meant a degree in medicine or engineering.

My family was ecstatic. To celebrate my achievement, my father made a big pot of tea, bought a box of Salvana chocolates, and rushed to the family diwan in Khan Younis camp, where our Mukhtar served Arabic coffee. Everyone at home also came to congratulate my mother. However, this fleeting joy soon turned into despair. Due to university closures, I was forced to wait for five years, clinging to my dream of continuing my studies.

Mahmoud Darwish was right: Palestinians suffer from an incurable disease called hope. Paradoxically, the restrictions of occupation during the first intifada created fertile ground for activism, resistance and community work. Young people denied access to university education due to the lack of formal institutions joined educational committees formed by civil society across Palestine.

We converted homes, mosques and community halls into temporary classrooms. Often, we had to scale the fence and sneak through alleys to reach the students without being spotted by the Israeli soldiers enforcing the curfew. Professors are also risking arrest and imprisonment by opening their homes to students to ensure learning continues. Thousands of people enrolled, studied, and even graduated under such miserable conditions.

When university finally reopened in 1994, my six siblings and I were the first to start. This was a triumphant moment for my family, even though it placed a heavy financial burden on my father, who had to pay for school fees for so many of us. The reopening of universities is a restoration not just of education but of an important part of Palestinian identity and resistance.

The term “academic massacre” was coined by Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi during the 2009 Gaza war, and it reflects the reality we have faced for decades. School massacres are the deliberate erasure of indigenous knowledge and cultural continuity. It is an attempt to sever the connection between a people and its collective knowledge and historical identity.

Today, the reality is grimmer. All 12 universities in Gaza are in ruins, at least 88% All schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

The physical destruction of infrastructure goes hand in hand with efforts to delegitimize institutions providing education. In late October, Israel effectively banned UNRWA from operating. The ban is another blow to Palestine’s intellectual future, given that the U.N. agency operates 284 schools in Gaza and 96 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

However, as we have in the past, Palestinians in Gaza continue to resist this systematic erasure of their educational and cultural lifeline. Education is more than a tool for survival, it is the fabric that binds our nation, the bridge to our history, and the foundation for our hope for liberation.

When I think about the massive damage to Gaza’s education system and all those students who continue to study despite all odds, I’m reminded of the 1970 poem “The Sun” by Samih Qasim, known as the “Palestinian Resistance Poet” The poem from “The Enemy”. “.

“You can plunder my inheritance,
Burn my books, my poems,
Feed my meat to the dogs,

you may spread a web of terror
on the rooftops of my village
O enemy of the sun,

But I won’t compromise,
to the last pulse in my veins,
I want to resist. “

Palestinian students will continue this resistance, walking for hours every day to get an education. It is the spirit of a people who refuse to be erased as individuals, as a nation, as a historical fact and as a future reality.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.