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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the hostilities erupted. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, saying they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help young residents learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, schools and security. Schooling is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of recreation, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for families running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, homes, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who survive experience malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

Across this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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