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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a proper school. That long since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the comparable vista. Some message me when they are able, saying they long for education and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I try to study online. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, educational institutions and relatives. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve books, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not merely devastation; it is minors who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still remember the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My learning environment was a zone of recreation, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Joy always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced anxiety. Indeed, even in earlier times, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a protected zone but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for families running from the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and entirely ruined. There are almost no educational facilities still erect in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our lives: security, residences, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my learners are now deceased – youth who talked about becoming doctors, creatives, and educators. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write inquiring: “How are you, educator?” We exchange short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to express: “We persist.” And provided that we continue learning, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also guardians. I am a mother of {three|several