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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 entered a proper school. That long since I listened to the school chime at the institution I attended, took my seat and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the concluding day I went to school. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; teaching, break time, a verse presentation. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and sister in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At darkness, I gaze toward the night lights through the holes of my tent and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some message me when they manage, stating they miss school and have kept their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to communicate and to show the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study via the web. Other times, I attend a tiny space where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our residences, schools and relatives. I lost my uncle, his spouse, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children are entitled to books, schools and security. Education is not a luxury, it is a basic right. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for a substantial period. Initially in a southern city, then in a different town, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students keen on education.

Instructing them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced fear. Indeed, even in earlier times, local youth were always frightened. My teaching space was a place of safety but after 7 October, everything changed.

My learning center became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are hardly any schools left standing in this area now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has broken every aspect of our reality: security, homes, educational centers, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – youth who mentioned dreaming of physicians, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with hunger, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the connectivity allows, I hear from a small number of them. They message inquiring: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I inform them I have no answer.

Across Gaza, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And provided that we persist in education, we will endure.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several