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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page 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 mother and father, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my peers see the same sky. Some reach out when they can, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to help Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a reporter – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and relatives. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we demand measures. Gaza’s children deserve texts, educational facilities and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Soon, it was struck and completely destroyed. There are very few educational facilities left standing in Gaza now. For 24 months, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every aspect of our lives: protection, dwellings, learning places, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my students are now deceased – minors who spoke of dreaming of medical professionals, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with starvation, eviction and fatigue – and nevertheless, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity enables, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “Are you OK, teacher?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of interaction amid the chaos. They ask if situations will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout this territory, teachers, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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