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

'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, 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 companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth merit literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of recreation, art, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for families escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any schools left standing in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every part of our existence: security, homes, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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