'Without education, we lose our future': Gaza's Children and Educators on Two Years Deprived of School.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is children who still dream under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My classroom was a zone of play, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest substituted fear. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for families escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: protection, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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