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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We wait in line for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my tent and question if my peers see the same sky. Some contact me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to assist young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Young residents deserve texts, learning environments and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives escaping the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are hardly any schools still erect in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has destroyed every part of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience starvation, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, teachers, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several