'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Gaza's Children and Educators on 24 Months Without Education.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents deserve books, schools and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of recreation, art, and movement. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: security, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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