'When education is lost, the future vanishes': Gaza's Youth and Educators on 24 Months Deprived of School.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and question if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Young residents merit books, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of recreation, art, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our existence: security, residences, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several