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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, break time, a literary performance. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they are able, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study via the web. On other occasions, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Gaza’s children deserve literature, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. This region is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I used to teach six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My classroom was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now lost – minors who mentioned dreaming of doctors, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain experience starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the online access allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, teacher?” We exchange short messages, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I tell them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, educators, aid workers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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