'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Gaza's Youth and Teachers on 24 Months Without School.

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, saying they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to assist local youth study, 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 child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, schools and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our lives: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – children who talked about dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience hunger, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share brief words, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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