'When education is lost, the future vanishes': Gaza's Youth and Educators on 24 Months Without Education.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes 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 entering the education field to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in this region. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, schools and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, residences, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who mentioned becoming medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience hunger, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “How are you, educator?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several