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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. 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 remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where aid workers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and families. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children merit texts, learning environments and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for households running from the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: safety, residences, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now deceased – minors who spoke of becoming doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure starvation, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over the region, teachers, volunteers and non-profits attempt instruction wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also guardians. I am a guardian of {three|several