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

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. 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 soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct 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 student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and relatives. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of play, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest replaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has shattered every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I hear from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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