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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, learning centers and families. I grieved for my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth merit literature, schools and safety. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for households running from the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They question if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, teachers, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several