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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and security. Learning is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in the region for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always believed education should be vibrant. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced apprehension. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our existence: safety, homes, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now lost – children who talked about becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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