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

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and families. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, 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 say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth deserve literature, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced apprehension. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now dead – youth who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience hunger, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, teachers, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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