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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still vividly remember the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, warning alarms sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to assist Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I aim for being a journalist – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I state this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents deserve texts, schools and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not only destruction; it is minors who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always scared. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any schools left standing in Gaza now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has broken every facet of our existence: security, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now dead – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, minor flashes of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever go back to normal. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, instructors, helpers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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