An unforgettable and non renewable childhood

We studied history, geography, and law in elementary and middle school. We were tested numerous times on world maps and the borders between them, drawing them, memorizing their locations, and receiving numerous lessons on the history of countries, starting with the battles each fought, the division of classes, the system of monarchy, the nature of battles, and the time of countries' independence. Undoubtedly, we studied (law), starting with the right to define it, easy to answer but difficult to apply. After five wars that befell us in Gaza, I realized that there was no point in teaching us all these subjects.

We in Gaza were supposed to study subjects that were appropriate for our absolute pain, which does not change with the passage of years, but rather increases in intensity and gnaws at our memories and hearts simultaneously. They should have developed a plan for us that differed from the plans of the entire world's curriculum. They should have decided that we should learn the art of dealing with shock, sadness, helplessness, and patience, that we should master calming our nerves a little, or that we should train ourselves to accept the horrific ways of death that excel at turning our bodies into canvases. A bloody scene that the whole world marvels at, as if it were a rare modern painting. They taught us literature, such as satire and elegy. Because of how often we said goodbye, we discovered that expression also betrays us, and words refuse to be accepted with a few sentences or tears. Perhaps they should have devoted classes to teaching us how to console those who lost their families, their legs, and themselves, instead of devoting time to teaching us safety rules during earthquakes, how to protect your head and chest with your hands under your school desk in the event of a war while you were outside your home. Why did we go through all of this? Why, at a time when every child in the world has the right to enjoy (school recess), while we exploit it to learn how to survive the proposed forms of death, we were wronged when we were forced to learn the heroism of other countries and rights in a constitution, mere ink on paper, fear and panic played with us for many years, starting from our early childhood until the present time, we suffered from panic and loss of balance, regret enough to harden our hearts or even stop beating, but we lived, satisfied with little and praying for a lot of time to repair the devastation left behind by wars in the form of bouts of excessive analysis of our share of death and what it would look like at a time when we must run on the roads of life full of hope, kneeling, pursued by everything except life, and despite all that, we loved our homelands and their specter visited us, seeking us until we became helpless, repeating, “The country sought its people,” and flipping through the archives of memory and phone together to remember every day was an opportunity To fall in love with Gaza again, they tried to raise in us with their wars hatred for it, or fear and complexes, but they only increased our fear for it and our attachment to it, love, and we love that country even in its recent destruction..