'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Palestinian Children and Educators on Two Years Without Education.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

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

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and relatives. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, homes, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – children who talked about becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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