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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck soon after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We queue for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my temporary home and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, educational facilities and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: security, residences, schools, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my students are now lost – youth who talked about becoming physicians, artists, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a few of them. They message questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

All over the region, educators, helpers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we persist in education, we will persist.

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