The Disappearance of Ink in Gaza

One day recently, I sat down to teach my little sister, Marah, who is six years old. The lesson was about colors in English. But on the pages before us, I found that despite their names all the colors were printed in black. How will children learn the difference between colors when they are printed with black ink only?

“This is an ugly book, the stories from the bookshop are like the stars, I love them more, I don’t want my schoolbook,” said my little Marah.

She is not the only one to suffer from the disappearance of ink in Gaza.

It is well known that students in Gaza love knowledge and learning, and have a strong capacity for creativity and innovation. Even during genocide, they returned to studying and carried their notebooks and pens with determination. Now, with the approach of the high school exams for those born in 2008, the exams for West Bank students have been set and will be held in June. But the educational journey of Gaza students is severely threatened by the lack of ink and paper in the strip.

As assistant manager of an educational center for high school students, I see the daily difficulties our students face. Textbooks no longer resemble the ones I studied from. Now they are printed on flimsy paper, often without covers, entirely in black and white. 

A teacher asks us to refill the whiteboard markers. We tell him that the remaining ink is not enough for the upcoming classes, and watch his face fall. “I don’t know how I will be able to explain to the students if the ink runs out, when there is no alternative, even chalk is not available,” says biology teacher Murad Al-Saei. He explains that biology requires colored images in order for the student to visualize and memorize. “How should the student understand the images attached to the text when they are printed without colored ink?” When printing prices skyrocketed, his biology handouts were converted from multi-colored images to black and white.

Al-Saei turns to his colleague Ziad Salem, an Arabic teacher, and says, “Even the smart screens that we used before the war are no longer available. Even one screen is not available, and if it is, we have no electricity or internet.”

Every day the teachers go searching for the small ink cartridges that might still be available. “What shall we do? Do we leave the students to fend for themselves?”

Al-Saei adds more: “Usually, the explanation of the lesson in the handout is one color, the questions are one color, and the answer is another color, so the study is familiar to the student. But now when everything is printed in black, the student takes more time or may not notice certain details.”

Israel wants this generation to be illiterate. It prevents ink and paper from entering Gaza in order to block our education. But we persevere, because Palestinians are devoted to science and knowledge.

High school and university students want to study with colors. In addition to dimming our books, Israel has reduced  our city to shades of black and gray. We all need colored ink; it is crucial for our future.

My sister Marah still searches for the colors. She longs for yellow stars and bright flowers to return to our city and to the pages of her schoolbooks. With crayons and markers she and I try together to color her books, so she can complete her lessons. 

Nadera Raied Mushtha is a writer and poet from Gaza studying English language education at the Islamic University of Gaza. Her writing has been published on The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Massachusetts Review, Prism Reports, The Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 

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