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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice 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 crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and seclusion is unavailable. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my tent and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, saying they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I aim for being a reporter – to compose, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, learning centers and kin. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve literature, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Indeed, even prior to conflict, young residents were always scared. My classroom was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a refuge for families escaping the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has broken every part of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who talked about aspiring to be physicians, artists, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who remain live with hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, instructor?” We communicate concise phrases, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the disorder. They ask if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and non-profits endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

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