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

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, stating they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my family member, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit texts, learning environments and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. 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.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who talked about dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a handful of them. They message questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, helpers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several