'Without education, we lose our future': Palestinian Youth and Educators on 24 Months Deprived of School.

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth are entitled to books, educational facilities and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of amusement, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families escaping the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every aspect of our reality: security, homes, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience hunger, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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