The Opinions - I Was a Teacher in Gaza. This Is What Haunts Me Now.

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

The last time Mosab Abu Toha, a poet and teacher, was in a classroom in Gaza, it was to shelter with his students and their families, all seeking refuge from Israeli airstrikes. Since then, he and his family have fled Gaza, and they temporarily reside in the United States. In this audio essay, he shares what it means when classrooms cease being places of learning and become a family’s only hope for survival.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Musaub Aba Toha, and I'm a Palestinian poet from the Gaza Strip. I left Gaza with my wife and three children. Two months after the October 7th happened, we hid it to Egypt before making it to the United States where we are currently living. I taught English for about five years before I had to leave Gaza and before the school year, last year, had to stop. So as a teacher, I couldn't help but make friends with my students.

When I start to present a new lesson, I would bring up some stories, especially after I traveled to the United States in 2019, and I would show them some photos that I took in Arizona or in Massachusetts or in New York City and some videos of the snow and the fall there and my students would jump off their desks and I found them all around me.

Some students, by the way, called me the American, the American, although I only lived there for a few months. So they love me, but when I become strict, they know how tough I could be. as a teacher. I loved my work as a teacher. I loved my students and also loved my fellow teachers. But after a year of atrocities, I can't imagine myself returning to teach students at schools where many of them lived with their parents and their siblings and their neighbors and their friends, a place that was supposed to be a safe one, but it turned out to be a dangerous one.

Israel bombarded Gaza, often without warning. The first time I sheltered in a school was in 2014. It was in a school in Jabilia. Another UN school was hit. At least 15 of the 3,300 people sheltering inside were killed. Many were sleeping when the shells started falling. And I was lucky with my family. We left the school a few hours before.

An Israeli tank shell exploded in the school yard where some families were sleeping outside. The second time I sheltered in a school was after October 7th in the Jabilia refugee camp. We were sharing the classroom with about five families, and that's the case of most of the classrooms in school shelters. Every family would have a small part of the classroom, and they would use some deaths. or some blackboards to partition the classroom into smaller sections. And you would be amazed to see that inside that maybe two meters by two meters, you would find some blankets, a stove, a water tank, some dishes and spoons. So that tiny space was like a house.

The men would be outside most of the time bringing water, looking for food, bringing firewood. It happened a few times that I was standing in line to fill my water bucket. And I saw some of the students I was teaching in the past years. I felt like we shouldn't be standing outside, waiting for something that shouldn't be waited for. Shouldn't be a hard thing to get.

We should be. In school together, me teaching my students, telling them stories that I love, tell them about my travels. They tell me about what they love, their favorite soccer team. So instead of doing all of this, I would ask my students, how is your family, where are you staying? And they would tell me, oh, I lost my father, I lost my sibling, I lost a lot of cousins. And I would tell them, oh, our house was bombed, you know. I don't have my books that I used to show you on my phone. So, you know, the kind of stories that I was telling my students

and they were telling me about were tragically different from the ones that I used to share with them and they used to share with me. I don't know how things look like today, but the only thing I know is that schools continue to be bombed. Just two weeks ago, I was on a flight and once the plane landed, The first thing I did, as usual, was to check the news.

And I found out that the Israeli army targeted a school in Jabalya camp. And that school shared the same wall as the school where my younger sister has been sheltering with her husband and the three children. I freaked out, and I started to make a call and see what's happening. and luckily my sister was in her classroom with her children but the smoke from the bomb pushed them out of the classroom and she saw something that was horrifying I mean flesh and bone of mothers and children in the schoolyard it is estimated that about 80% of the schools in Gaza

have been damaged or destroyed and this is a really very very pleasant sign of the obliteration of education in Gaza. The Gaza Strip has one of the highest percentage of educated people in the world. And this for me as a teacher is a very bleak sign of the future. Just like the students, the teachers themselves

have been traumatized. Many of the teachers have lost several family members. I myself lost 30 members of my extended family and three first cousins with their children and spouses. I myself am traumatized as a teacher because I couldn't protect my children, I couldn't protect my students, many of whom I don't know whether they are alive or dead

and how they are struggling every day. A teacher cannot give hope if he doesn't have it. himself. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Veshaca Durba, Phoebe, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Brusek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota.

The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuelski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.