Gaza- While Muhammad Hammad was walking through the alleys of tents, he watched in pain and silence the children gathering around the pots of the hospices and lining up in line to fill water, barefoot children loitering during a wasted day, oscillating between the humiliation of this place and the emptiness of time.
Muhammad fled to the sea, contemplating Israel’s hidden wars that seek to slowly and deliberately annihilate the mind. While he was busy thinking, he noticed the presence of girls in the open beach rest areas late in the day. He asked them why they were there, and they answered him, “We are high school students chasing the Internet that… It is only available in cafes or beach rest houses.”
There was an inner voice that supported what Muhammad was thinking: “It is a necessity and an urgent need.” He was conflicted by concerns about place, time, and capabilities. He was immersed in thinking about how to begin implementing what he aspired to, and he spent several days reeling between rushing for it and refraining from it.
He remained in this state until he watched a video interview while browsing social networking sites, with an old man in which he said, “Israel systematically wants the generation to spend their lives chasing queues for food and drink, but we are ready to dispense with everything except knowledge and education.”
It is a struggle of wills that erupted like a flood among Muhammad, so he took the decision to rebel against reality and begin the first step in building a school that would not be limited to being an educational space, but rather to be a haven for building the human being that Israel seeks to destroy.
Phoenix Rise
Only 60 days were enough to realize the dream of Muhammad and his team, who raised the “Phoenix” school, which gained a share of its name and rose from the ashes in its moral and material senses, far from myths, as 40% of its building capabilities were from the rubble of destruction that they recycled.
The director of the school construction project, Muhammad Hammad, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “We obtained iron from broken agricultural bathrooms, reclaimed tiles from the razed streets and from the border areas, and we bought artificial turf from the playgrounds, where there were separate patches that we sewed, washed, and used. Even the decorations we brought from the homes of friends and relatives that It was partially destroyed.”
As for school desks, they were part of the revolutionary idea, as desks were recovered from bombed schools, then assembled, repaired, and converted into new school desks.
While the implementing team relied on providing a large part of the capabilities to recycle the rubble, 60% of the remaining materials needed were purchased from the local Gaza market, in keeping with their slogan “Gaza nourishes itself.” “In light of the closure of the borders and the prevention of the entry of resources, what will itch your skin?” Change your nails,” says Muhammad.
On the way to realizing the dream, the team encountered obstacles, the most prominent of which was finding a large, flat area, amidst the accumulation of nearly two million displaced people in the south of the Gaza Strip, in addition to the lack of electricity and water, and the market’s lack of “tent shades.”
But all obstacles were overcome, as the team succeeded, with contributions from inside and outside the sector, in implementing two projects to generate solar energy and dig a water well for the school, benefiting hundreds of families in the surrounding areas. Hammad says, “A strange thing happened to them while digging the well, as the extracted water “It was fresh, contrary to what was expected, even though it was only 200 meters from the sea.”
Icon school
In the eyes of Gazans, the Phoenix appears to be more than a school and greater than a project. Those entering it imagine that it is an educational edifice, and its visitor imagines that he is outside the geography of war. It is the largest field school in the Gaza Strip, extending over 3 dunums, and includes 2,500 students, male and female, from the preparatory stage to the high school stage for both sexes. Each gender was allocated 3 days a week, in 4 periods, from morning until 4 pm.
The school employs 66 teachers, most of whom are volunteers with long experience in teaching. Muhammad praises its staff, saying, “Most of them were former principals or teachers with experience ranging from 10 to 20 years.” They were appointed after they underwent employment interviews supervised by a committee from the Ministry of Education. And education, 66 male and female teachers will be selected out of 400 applicants.
As for the students’ interest in registering, it was “shocking,” as Hammad described it. He spoke about it, saying, “When we opened the registration doors, the number of registered students was complete within a few hours, and we were forced to stop registration by force only hours after it was announced, as the gates were closed to stop the tide of those wishing to register.” “.
This turnout translated the public’s fascination with the school, which transported their children from the miserable atmosphere of tents to a spacious place that included a playground, a garden, large areas, colours, chairs, lighting, a cafeteria and specialists. It was a real school containing within its walls a Qur’anic school for teaching monotheism, jurisprudence, the Qaida al-Nouraniya, biography, and extracurricular recitation of the Qur’an and Sunnah. .
The dream became a reality
After an arduous effort that culminated in a solemn opening, the curtain was unveiled on a story of challenge that began with an idea and became a reality. On that day, Muhammad could not hold back his tears when he saw the fruit of his and his team’s efforts, and the children lined up in their correct place in the school queue. Then he grabbed his friend by the arm and prostrated to God, thanking God for using them to save… 2,500 children from the mire of ignorance and the futility of homelessness, describing it as “the happiest day of my entire life.”
After a month of regular school hours, school supervisors praise the prevailing state of discipline. Muhammad says, “There is a strange state of discipline and commitment. No child comes to school forced, and there are no cases of student absenteeism, irregularity, or escape. The rush toward learning was remarkable.” .
Muhammad succeeded in obtaining recognition for his educational facilities from the Ministry of Education, and the students’ data is registered with it. It was agreed with the Ministry to grant certificates to committed students at the end of the academic year. He was also able, in cooperation with UNICEF, to determine the school’s coordinates and its spatial location on the “system.” GPS” in an attempt to neutralize it from the danger of Israeli targeting.
“Didn’t you feel afraid to engage in a project where hundreds of children gather and the school is responsible for their safety?” Tel Aviv Tribune Net asked him to answer, “I see that leaving children in the swamp of ignorance is a slow killing of them and an end to their lives. Are we more afraid of possible death for them than of inevitable death?” He added, “We have been living in war for 15 months. How long will we remain prey to the fear that It prevents us from achieving our dreams and forces us to escape from our thoughts?
“Our people deserve better”
“Phoenix” is one of more than 284 large registered projects carried out by the “Aouna” youth volunteer team, which included digging and operating wells, opening streets, removing rubble and sanitation projects, establishing camps, distributing meat, providing parcels, establishing a medical hospital, supporting medical points, and establishing educational schools. And support education points.
The ambitious young man in his twenties talks about his next steps, “I am seeking to equip halls with the latest technologies, with a capacity of up to 900 students to hold extracurricular courses. I also want to expand the school to accommodate additional numbers of students who are crowded on waiting lists, in addition to striving to provide the Internet given that high school students need it in their studies in a major way.” continuous”.
Hammad transformed from a media activist who documented the occupation’s massacres at the beginning of the war on Gaza to an influencer and inspiration who provides relief to the bereaved and strengthens their steadfastness. He says, “I have come to the conviction that we should promote our achievements, not our tragedies. Our people deserve the best, and I always strive to bring about a real transformation in people’s lives, even in the darkest circumstances.”
Hammad concludes his speech to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “I hate for Gaza to appear as a beggar. The world has the honor to support Gaza without favor or favor, and with our fervent energy, you will see Gaza as you have never seen it before.”
