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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. That long since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, took my seat and raised my hand during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was struck shortly after the war began. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in the fifth year on 7 October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the hardest loss of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I dwell alongside my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions sway with breezes, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We wait in line for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Aspiration appears brittle.

At night, I gaze toward the celestial bodies through the openings of my temporary home and wonder if my peers see the identical heavens. Some contact me when they can, expressing they long for education and have kept their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support Gaza’s children study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a journalist – to write, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us math and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is education, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I express this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we want action. The youth deserve books, learning environments and safety. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my narrative and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in another location, and now in the central camp in the middle of the territory. Before the war started, I typically educated six classes of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Instructing them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a pupil's gaze when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator strives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a space of amusement, aesthetics, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest displaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My school became a refuge for households running from the bombs. Soon, it was struck and totally demolished. There are almost no educational facilities remaining intact in the region now. For 24 months, nothing has been normal. The hostilities has broken every aspect of our reality: protection, dwellings, learning places, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my learners are now lost – youth who spoke of becoming medical professionals, creatives, and educators. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure starvation, relocation and weariness – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Occasionally, when the connectivity permits, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share short messages, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of connection amid the chaos. They inquire if circumstances will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout this territory, instructors, helpers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Schooling has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to express: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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