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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, stating they miss school and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and relatives. I lost my family member, his partner, and their children. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, schools and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.

I always thought learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, art, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my students are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with hunger, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “How are you, instructor?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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