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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, 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 held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; 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 learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I go to a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to texts, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher cherishes.

I always believed education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – minors who mentioned dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience starvation, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, aid workers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several