'When education is lost, the future vanishes': Palestinian Children and Teachers on 24 Months Deprived of Education.

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, stating they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth deserve literature, schools and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my learners are now lost – youth who talked about becoming medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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