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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, expressing they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents deserve books, educational facilities and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – minors who spoke of becoming physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure starvation, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, instructors, volunteers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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