'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Palestinian Youth and Educators on Two Years Deprived of School.

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

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

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for relatives fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools remaining intact in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now deceased – youth who talked about aspiring to be doctors, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They message questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, teachers, helpers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several