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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth merit literature, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in another location, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor strives for.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of amusement, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households running from the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive endure malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They question if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, educators, aid workers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several