'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Gaza's Youth and Educators on Two Years Deprived of Education.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. 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 online. Other times, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, learning centers and relatives. I lost my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to books, schools and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

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

Joy always permeated the space as interest replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every part of our existence: safety, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain experience starvation, eviction and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several