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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a routine day; lessons, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I look up at the stars through the holes of my shelter and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to write, to speak and to show the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning online. Other times, I go to a small tent where helpers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, learning centers and kin. I mourned my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I state this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in the region for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a new idea clicked; the kind of moment every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of recreation, creativity, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always permeated the space as curiosity displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always frightened. My classroom was a secure location but after the seventh, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for families fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – youth who mentioned becoming doctors, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, educator?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout Gaza, educators, helpers and non-profits try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

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