Our children are carrying far more than just their backpacks

I'm from Khirbet Umm al-Khair... a place that may be small on the map, but that is vast in its pain and resilience.

Here, we wake up every day not knowing what the day holds, but we wake up because we have to keep going.

I'm a mother of a student in the first grade… Every morning I stand at the door and say goodbye to my son as if I'm saying goodbye twice: once because he's going to school, and once because he's walking there on a road that isn't safe.

Our children don't go to school like other children... their path isn't just a path; it's fear and anxiety with every step.

My son doesn't just carry his backpack, his pens and his pencils... he carries his fear, and my heart goes with him every step of the way.

The road to school has become a daily test: Will he make it? Will he come back? Will he choke on the gas or feel terror at the noise?

I’m the wife of a martyr... a teacher whose dream was to see the children of his country educated, holding their heads high.

He used to say, "Knowledge is the path"... and today that same path is blocked for our students.

On 13 April, under the cover of darkness, the night before students throughout the West Bank were due to return to the classroom for the first time since the war, a group of settlers installed a barbed wire fence across the road leading to Umm al-Khair school. 

This road is not just a passage; it is the only route that connects more than fifty children to their education. With its closure, the Israeli occupation has deprived the children of Umm al-Khair of this basic human right for over two weeks – on top of the month and a half they have been deprived of due to Israel’s war on Iran. 

Every morning since that night, the children have gone out in their school uniforms, carrying their bags and their hopes, only to be met with a harsh reality: the barbed wire, the Israeli military, civil administration and setters throwing tear gas and firing stun grenades, intent on preventing the children from passing.

I saw the fear in their eyes... I saw a child running not because he was late for class, but because he wanted to survive. I saw a mother saying goodbye to her son in the morning as if she wasn't sure he'd return with that same face.

I’ve seen the children walk with their hands on their hearts, not because of the cold, but because of the noise that might come suddenly, or the gas that could suffocate them while they're still so young.

Nevertheless, every day, parents have gathered with their children, standing near the blocked road, singing the anthem of freedom, cheering for Umm al-Khair with innocent joy, and chanting for their right to an education of which they have been deprived.

With every chant, hope has grown, and with every tear gas canister fired, fear has tried to break them, but unsuccessfully. The children have remained there, demanding simply to be allowed to sit at their desks. 

Every time my son leaves for school, I remember his father... and I say to myself, if Awdah were here, he would have stood with all his might so that these students wouldn't be deprived of their right to an education.

Here, our lives are not ordinary. A mother doesn't just fear for her son from illness and exhaustion... she fears for him on the road, at the checkpoint, for the moment that could change everything.

Despite all this, I am a mother, and I cannot give up.

We cultivate the land despite everything, we live despite our hardships, and sometimes we laugh against our will... because if we let sadness consume us, we'll have lost everything.

I hold my son's hand and tell him, "Go... learn... continue... this is your father's wish."▼