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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, intermission, 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 learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support young residents acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents deserve literature, learning environments and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every instructor cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity replaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for households running from the explosives. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions left standing in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now deceased – youth who spoke of becoming medical professionals, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the right to exist. Those who survive experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

All over this territory, teachers, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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