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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the start-of-class signal at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my tent and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help local youth acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I go to a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I mourned my family member, his partner, and their children. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents are entitled to literature, educational facilities and protection. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Initially in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in the central camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students eager to learn.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, creativity, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced fear. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions left standing in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The war has broken every facet of our reality: protection, dwellings, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

A significant number of my learners are now deceased – minors who talked about dreaming of doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I hear from a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, instructor?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I state to them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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