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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, took my seat and participated actively during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve literature, schools and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of play, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest substituted anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our lives: safety, homes, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my pupils are now lost – children who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience hunger, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I hear from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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