'Without education, we lose our future': Gaza's Youth and Educators on 24 Months Deprived of Education.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That morning, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. 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 that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit literature, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher strives for.

I always thought learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every part of our existence: security, homes, schools, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure hunger, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, educators, helpers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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