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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my tent and question if my peers see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, expressing they long for education and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to reveal the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning online. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit literature, learning environments and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will keep drafting, 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 al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still remember the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always occupied the area as interest substituted fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, everything changed.

My school became a refuge for families escaping the bombs. Shortly after, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every aspect of our lives: safety, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now dead – children who spoke of aspiring to be physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive live with starvation, relocation and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across the region, teachers, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

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