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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my tent and question if my friends see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, learning centers and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to literature, schools and safety. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our existence: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now dead – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, instructors, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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