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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my tent and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and families. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, art, and motion. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, residences, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who spoke of becoming medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I receive messages from a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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