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

'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

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

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a space of play, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our reality: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain live with starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We share brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, teachers, helpers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several