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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the start-of-class signal at the institution I attended, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted not long after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on 7 October: the last day I entered the school building. That early hours, alert signals blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others held hands tightly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

Now I live with my parents, siblings and female sibling in a congested safe space in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for nourishment and hydration. Power is imaginary and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the holes of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they manage, stating they long for education and have retained their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of entering the education field to help Gaza’s children learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a child in the Strip. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. The youth deserve texts, learning environments and protection. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been teaching in this area for a substantial period. First in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in the central camp in the heart of the region. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the twinkle in a learner's look when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always believed learning should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of play, creativity, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always filled the room as curiosity displaced anxiety. Certainly, even prior to conflict, young residents were always frightened. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, all was altered.

My school became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Soon, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools still erect in Gaza now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our existence: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now lost – children who mentioned dreaming of medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here live with hunger, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange brief words, abbreviated teaching, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I inform them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, instructors, aid workers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will endure.

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