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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I attempt learning digitally. Sometimes, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, schools and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, educational facilities and security. Education is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my account 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 al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my pupils are now lost – minors who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I hear from a small number of them. They contact asking: “How are you, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, educators, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

Many of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several