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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. Sometimes I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed shortly after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals sounded through the passageways. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their previous journals; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to reveal the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study digitally. Other times, I attend a small tent where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the attacks recommence but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, educational institutions and families. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their offspring. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who still dream under aerial surveillance at night. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in the region for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest displaced apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are very few educational facilities left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: safety, dwellings, schools, hopes. Fear and grief are constant companions.

Many of my students are now lost – children who talked about dreaming of doctors, painters, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure hunger, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They write questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We share concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I inform them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, teachers, volunteers and charities endeavor education in all available spaces: in tents, ruined educational areas, or packed refuges. Schooling has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we continue learning, we will endure.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a guardian of {three|several