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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I look up at the stars through the gaps of my shelter and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, saying they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I mourned my family member, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. The youth are entitled to literature, educational facilities and protection. Education is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

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

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My classroom was a space of amusement, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity displaced apprehension. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: protection, residences, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned becoming physicians, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, educators, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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