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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. 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 beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I observe the stars through the openings of my tent and wonder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Sometimes, I visit a tiny space where aid workers teach us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and relatives. I grieved for my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the global audience, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, educational facilities and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for over ten years. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always thought education should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My school became a safe haven for relatives running from the bombs. Soon, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The hostilities has broken every facet of our reality: protection, residences, learning places, aspirations. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – youth who spoke of aspiring to be doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and however, they still cling to the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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