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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they long for education and have preserved their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to draft, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, 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 demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij 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 enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few schools still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every part of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who talked about dreaming of doctors, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

All over the region, educators, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several