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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where volunteers teach us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve literature, schools and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our existence: security, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my pupils are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, eviction and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

Across the region, educators, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several