'Without education, we lose our future': Palestinian Youth and Educators on Two Years Deprived of School.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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 mother and father, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity substituted fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every part of our reality: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I tell them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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