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

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the corridors. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents deserve texts, schools and protection. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always occupied the area as curiosity substituted anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every part of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a few of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, educators, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several