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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I was last inside a real classroom. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the last day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

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 guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the stars through the openings of my shelter and wonder if my peers see the same sky. Some message me when they can, stating they long for education and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to help young residents study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning digitally. Other times, I go to a modest shelter where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth are entitled to texts, educational facilities and safety. Education is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recall the gleam in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My learning environment was a space of recreation, creativity, and movement. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for families fleeing the bombs. Not long later, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are almost no schools still erect in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our reality: security, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Numerous of my students are now dead – youth who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, painters, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience hunger, eviction and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still maintain the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a few of them. They write questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They question if situations will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, aid workers and non-profits try to teach in all available spaces: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we persist in education, we will endure.

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