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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained 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 support young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and families. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve books, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for over ten years. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recollect the sparkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always thought instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as curiosity substituted anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every part of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – minors who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure starvation, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, instructors, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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