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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where volunteers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth deserve literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated six classes of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for families fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every aspect of our reality: security, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience starvation, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I state to them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several