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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the morning bell at my former school, took my seat and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was struck not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the final day I attended classes. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a routine day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The tent walls sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, saying they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, educational institutions and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit literature, schools and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of amusement, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced apprehension. Yes, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every part of our lives: security, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now deceased – youth who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who survive experience malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the internet allows, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across the region, instructors, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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