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

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and sister 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. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth merit texts, schools and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for households escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few schools still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: safety, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now lost – minors who talked about becoming doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, aid workers and charities try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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