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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have preserved their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Other times, I attend a tiny space where helpers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I lost my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents are entitled to books, learning environments and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced fear. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has destroyed every facet of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now dead – minors who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

All over this territory, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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