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

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and families. I lost my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and security. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is youth 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 fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our lives: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – minors who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, teachers, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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