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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, took my seat and participated actively during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and families. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Gaza’s children merit books, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, 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, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in this area for over ten years. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I used to teach multiple groups of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a refuge for households escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, all has been unusual. The war has broken every aspect of our lives: safety, residences, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my students are now deceased – youth who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share short messages, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across this territory, instructors, helpers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

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