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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the stars through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is only ruins 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. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, everything changed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has broken every facet of our reality: protection, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I hear from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, educators, helpers and charities endeavor education in any feasible location: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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