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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been 24 months since I stepped into a proper school. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, wooden scraps, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed not long after the conflict started. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in the fifth year on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, warning alarms blared through the halls. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my guardians, siblings and sister in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I observe the night lights through the openings of my temporary home and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their former exercise books; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to support local youth acquire knowledge, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a child in this region. I want to share our experiences of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I attempt learning via the web. Sometimes, I attend a small tent where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the student who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I lost my family member, his spouse, and their young ones. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I express this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. The youth deserve literature, learning environments and protection. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at evening. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in this area for over ten years. Originally in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in this refugee settlement in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recall the twinkle in a pupil's gaze when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every teacher cherishes.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, art, and movement. We created cartographic art, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Certainly, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for relatives fleeing the bombs. Soon, it was attacked and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities left standing in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who spoke of dreaming of physicians, creatives, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain experience starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I get in touch with a few of them. They message asking: “How are you, teacher?” We exchange short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever go back to normal. I state to them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, educators, volunteers and organizations try to teach in any feasible location: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to express: “We are still here.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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