'When education is lost, the future vanishes': Gaza's Youth and Teachers on Two Years Deprived of Education.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the stars through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents deserve texts, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our reality: safety, homes, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – children who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and charities try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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