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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the night lights through the gaps of my temporary home and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study via the web. Other times, I go to a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice 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. Young residents deserve literature, learning environments and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as interest replaced fear. Yes, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every aspect of our reality: security, homes, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – youth who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience malnutrition, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

All over the region, instructors, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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