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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, stating they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect 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, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents deserve texts, schools and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be vibrant. My classroom was a zone of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even before the war, young residents were always scared. My teaching space was a place of safety but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our lives: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who survive endure malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a few of them. They message questioning: “How are you, educator?” We share brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Across the region, teachers, volunteers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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