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

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I go to a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. First 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 typically educated six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in the region now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has broken every part of our reality: security, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now dead – children who spoke of becoming medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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