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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, alert signals screamed through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my guardians, male relatives and female sibling in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I observe the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and question if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, expressing they miss school 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 dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to help local youth learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even here, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning via the web. Other times, I attend a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and families. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit texts, schools and security. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a fundamental entitlement. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who still dream beneath the drones at night. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in a refugee camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed six classes of about dozens of learners, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my mission and happiness in existence, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the sort of occasion every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced education should be dynamic. My classroom was a area of amusement, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always occupied the area as curiosity replaced apprehension. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools left standing in the region now. For two years, all has been unusual. The conflict has broken every aspect of our existence: protection, residences, schools, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now deceased – youth who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure malnutrition, displacement and weariness – and however, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet enables, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, educator?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if things will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, instructors, aid workers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we continue learning, we will remain.

Many of us are also guardians. I am a parent of {three|several