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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and raised my hand during my preferred subject. Sometimes I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, sharpener leftovers, laughter echoing down the halls. But my educational institution is gone; it was bombed soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on that fateful day: the last day I went to school. That beginning of the day, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my mother and father, two brothers and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I gaze toward the stars through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they are able, stating they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where helpers teach us mathematics and language. The sessions are brief – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the girl who loved numbers and poems, who believed education could transform society.

The war has taken so much; our homes, learning centers and relatives. I lost my family member, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my cherished hometown, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we want action. Gaza’s children are entitled to texts, learning environments and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is minors who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if the sole items remaining is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and presently in this refugee settlement in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the kind of moment every educator cherishes.

I always believed instruction should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of recreation, creativity, and activity. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always filled the room as inquisitiveness replaced apprehension. Certainly, even in earlier times, local youth were always scared. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, all was altered.

My educational institution became a safe haven for relatives escaping the explosives. Soon, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has shattered every part of our reality: security, residences, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now deceased – children who mentioned dreaming of physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the privilege of living. Those who are still here live with starvation, displacement and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a small number of them. They message questioning: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of connection amid the turmoil. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, instructors, volunteers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “We persist.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a guardian of {three|several