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

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, saying they long for education and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents deserve literature, schools and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

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

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities still erect in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I hear from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, teachers, aid workers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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