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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. At times I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the war began. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others gripped each other. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, intermission, 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 schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to support Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a tiny space where aid workers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought learning could change the world.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our dwellings, learning centers and relatives. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and safety. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Initially in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Before the war started, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every instructor strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of amusement, art, and motion. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always filled the room as interest displaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after that day, everything changed.

My educational institution became a refuge for households fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has shattered every facet of our lives: protection, dwellings, schools, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – children who mentioned becoming doctors, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We communicate brief words, short lessons, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout the region, educators, helpers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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