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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has shattered every part of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – children who spoke of becoming medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several