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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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 parents, two brothers and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, expressing they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to assist young residents acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. Gaza’s children are entitled to literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. First in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a area of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives escaping the aerial attacks. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of becoming medical professionals, painters, and educators. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive endure hunger, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access allows, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We communicate brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever go back to normal. I inform them I have no answer.

Across this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several