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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning online. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of amusement, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our reality: safety, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – minors who spoke of becoming medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “How are you, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Across the region, teachers, helpers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will remain.

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