My school in Khan Yunis refugee camp was one of my favorite places. I had such dedicated teachers and a deep love of learning that teaching became my life’s work. But, beyond the joy of learning, school was a place where we, Palestinians, could find connection with those we could not easily meet: Palestinians of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Palestinians of our history, and Palestinian writers, poets and intellectuals who told our story in exile. Education is how we weave the fabric of our nation.

Palestinians are known for having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. They are often referred to as the best educated refugees in the world. Education is part of our national story and a methodology for conveying it.

The annual Tawjihi exam (the national high school exam) is a key moment in the Palestinian liberation calendar. Every year, the announcement of the Tawjihi results sparks widespread celebrations broadcast across the country, to showcase and honor the achievements of outstanding students. The moment of joy goes beyond individual success, to serve as a collective confirmation of our students’ ability to persevere and excel despite the harsh challenges imposed on them.

In the summer of 2024, for the first time since 1967, there was no Tawjihi exam in Gaza. There were no celebrations.

Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system has caused intense pain and despair among hundreds of thousands of children and youth. However, the desire for education persists among Palestinians to the point that even in the midst of genocide, they do not stop trying to learn.

When I think of this indomitable spirit, I think of my cousin Jihan, a self-employed civil society worker who holds a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations. She and her three daughters have been living in a tent in Al-Mawasi for the past ten months. Her husband, the doctor, and their son were forcibly disappeared by the Israeli army in the early days of the genocide.

While living in deplorable conditions in a displacement camp, she and her daughters decided to help the students get their education despite the unfolding disaster. With the help of a solar panel, they created a small charging station and hotspot, where anyone can charge their devices and use the internet for a small fee.

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

Shahad and Bilal told me that they had to walk for hours to get to Jehan’s charging station so they could access their course notes. Every time they leave their tent for the trek, they hug their families tightly, knowing they may not return. Their parents are concerned, especially for Bilal, because young men are often targets of drone attacks. To help keep him safe, Shahad sometimes makes the trip alone, carrying her and her brother’s phones to charge and download coursework.

Long lines, with hundreds of young people waiting in line to get enough power to charge a laptop or phone. The internet signal is weak and therefore slow downloading. The whole process sometimes takes an entire day.

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

Shahad told me that she clings to the hope that, somehow, through her small victory of graduation, she may change this harsh reality. She is fully aware of the risks. “With every step, I wonder if I will ever come back. My dream is to finish my studies, graduate, and find a job to help my family,” she told me.

“I have seen people burned, mutilated, vaporized, and even left for stray animals to find. I have seen body parts hanging from power lines, on rooftops, carried by animal carts, or carried on shoulders. I pray to God that this will not be the case.” This is the way I will die. She added: “I must die in one piece and my mother can say goodbye to me and be buried with dignity.”

Everywhere, the mass killing of students and attacks on schools and universities are a tragedy. But in Palestine, where education is more than just a right or a dream, such attacks also target our national identity.

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

My generation also witnessed an Israeli attack on education, albeit less deadly and destructive. From 1987 to 1993, during The first intifadaIsrael imposed a comprehensive closure on 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, the Israeli military curfew required us to stay in our homes every night, from 8pm to 6am. The occupation soldiers were ordered to shoot any violator. Schools were raided, attacked, and closed for weeks or months at a time.

Despite this violence and disruption, education became an act of resistance. Like 18,000 other Tawjihi students in Gaza in 1989, I studied tirelessly. I have achieved the high grades required to be able to obtain a prestigious degree, which usually means medicine or engineering.

My family was very happy. To celebrate my achievement, my father made a large pot of tea, bought a box of Salvana chocolates, and hurried to the family diwan in Khan Yunis camp, where our family mukhtar served Arabic coffee. People also came to congratulate my mother at home. But this fleeting joy soon turned into despair. With universities closed, I had to wait five long years, desperately clinging to the dream of continuing my education.

Mahmoud Darwish was right: Palestinians are afflicted with an incurable disease called hope. Ironically, the restrictions imposed by the occupation during the first intifada created fertile ground for activism, resistance, and community work. In the absence of formal institutions, young people deprived of university education joined educational committees formed by civil society throughout Palestine.

We have turned homes, mosques and community halls into temporary classrooms. Many times, we had to climb walls and sneak through alleys to reach the students without being discovered by the Israeli soldiers enforcing the curfew. Professors also fought back by opening their homes to students, risking arrest and imprisonment to ensure learning continued. Thousands enrolled, studied, and even graduated under these appalling conditions.

When universities finally reopened in 1994, I was part of the first batch to start studying, along with six of my brothers. It was a moment of triumph for my family, even though it imposed a heavy financial burden on my father, who had to pay tuition fees for many of us. Reopening universities was not just a restoration of education, but rather a restoration of a vital part of Palestinian identity and resistance.

The term “school killing,” coined by Palestinian researcher Karma Nabulsi during the 2009 war on Gaza, embodies the reality we have been facing for decades. School killing is the deliberate erasure of Indigenous knowledge and cultural continuity. It is an attempt to sever the ties between the people and their collective intellectual and historical identity.

Today, the reality has become more dire. All 12 of Gaza’s universities are in ruins, at least 88 percent Of all the schools in Gaza were damaged or destroyed.

The physical destruction of infrastructure runs parallel to efforts to obliterate the legitimacy of institutions that provide education. In late October, Israel effectively prevented UNRWA from operating. Since this United Nations agency runs 284 schools in Gaza and 96 schools in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, this ban deals another blow to the intellectual future of Palestine.

However, as we have resisted in the past, Palestinians in Gaza continue to resist this systematic erasure of the educational and cultural lifelines. Education is not just a tool for survival, it is the fabric that connects our nation, the bridge to our history, and the foundation of our hope for liberation.

When I think about the massive devastation inflicted on the education system in Gaza and all those students who defy all odds to continue studying, I think of lines from Enemy of the Sun, a poem written in 1970 by Samih Al-Qasim, known as the “Poet of Palestinian Resistance.” “.

“You can plunder my heritage,
Burn my books and poems
I feed my meat to the dogs,

It may spread a network of terrorism
On the roofs of my village
O enemy of the sun

But I will not give up,
And until the last pulse in my veins
“I will resist.”

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

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.