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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a real classroom. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck soon 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 sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our residences, learning centers and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents deserve literature, learning environments and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in a different town, and currently in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as interest replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for families escaping the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any schools still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every part of our lives: security, homes, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my pupils are now lost – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I hear from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, educator?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.

Throughout this territory, instructors, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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