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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: powder from the board, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was struck soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, alert signals blared through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a ordinary day; teaching, intermission, a literary performance. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for water and food. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the holes of my temporary home and wonder if my companions see the same sky. Some contact me when they can, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to show the world what it means to be a minor in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in such times, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the student who loved numbers and poems, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, educational institutions and families. I lost my uncle, his partner, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Young residents merit books, educational facilities and protection. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. The territory is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, forty, instructor in central Gaza

I have been teaching in the region for a substantial period. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of amusement, creativity, and motion. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity substituted anxiety. Yes, even before the war, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My learning center became a refuge for households fleeing the bombs. Shortly after, it was struck and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every facet of our lives: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – children who spoke of becoming physicians, artists, and teachers. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain live with malnutrition, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a handful of them. They message asking: “Are you safe, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of contact amid the chaos. They question if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I inform them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, teachers, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

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