'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Palestinian Children and Educators on 24 Months Without School.

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my temporary home and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit texts, schools and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My classroom was a area of amusement, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every part of our lives: safety, homes, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – youth who spoke of dreaming of doctors, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure hunger, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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