'When education is lost, the future vanishes': Gaza's Children and Educators on 24 Months Deprived of School.

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end 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 parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I visit a small tent where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher lives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My classroom was a area of recreation, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for families escaping the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure hunger, eviction and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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