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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. Other times, I visit a small tent where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest replaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives escaping the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – minors who talked about becoming medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with hunger, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, educators, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will endure.

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