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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, joyful sounds in corridors. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a routine day; lessons, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At evening, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they manage, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to talk and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I go to a tiny space where aid workers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and relatives. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to books, learning environments and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is youth who continue to aspire amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about 40 students each, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed education should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of amusement, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity substituted fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households running from the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every part of our lives: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – minors who mentioned dreaming of doctors, artists, and instructors. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here experience malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message asking: “How are you, teacher?” We share brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I don’t know.

All over Gaza, educators, volunteers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several