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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; teaching, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

The war has taken so much. 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 packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my tent and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, stating they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I attend a small tent where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit texts, schools and security. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always thought instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and activity. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always occupied the area as interest displaced apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, young residents were always afraid. My teaching space was a place of safety but after that day, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for households escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The war has destroyed every facet of our reality: security, dwellings, schools, dreams. Fear and grief are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I hear from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate short messages, short lessons, tiny sparks of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over Gaza, instructors, aid workers and organizations try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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