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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

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

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children merit literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a zone of play, aesthetics, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always permeated the space as interest replaced fear. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my students are now deceased – children who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, painters, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive experience hunger, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a few of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, helpers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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