'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Palestinian Youth and Educators on 24 Months Without School.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, saying they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Young residents are entitled to literature, learning environments and protection. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are very few schools left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: security, residences, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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