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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I listened to the school chime at my former school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, intermission, 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 dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my tent and question if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help young residents study, 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 this region. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid death and ruins, 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 modest shelter where helpers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, educational institutions and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his spouse, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at evening. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in the region for more than a decade. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of play, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for families escaping the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – children who mentioned becoming doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain endure hunger, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the will to learn.

At times, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a few of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, teacher?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, small glimmers of connection amid the chaos. They ask if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

Numerous of us are also caregivers. I am a mother of {three|several