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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

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

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. On other occasions, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, schools and kin. I grieved for my family member, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents merit texts, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always thought instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for households running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will remain.

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