'Without education, we lose our future': Gaza's Youth and Teachers on 24 Months Without Education.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, saying they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest substituted fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our existence: protection, homes, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who talked about aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure hunger, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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