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'We seek action, not sympathy'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my favourite class. Occasionally I still vividly remember 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 textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the final day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others gripped each other. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

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

Now I live with my guardians, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The shelter coverings flap in the wind, failing to insulate. We line up for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At night, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to compose, to speak and to show the world what it represents to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where helpers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the bombing resumes but in such times, I feel alive. I recollect who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and kin. I grieved for my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I forfeited my beautiful city, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we want action. Young residents deserve books, learning environments and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a basic right. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at night. It is my narrative and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been educating in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds keen on education.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a pupil's gaze when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a area of play, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and turned lessons into stories.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity displaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a protected zone but after the seventh, everything changed.

My educational institution became a shelter for families escaping the aerial attacks. Not long later, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools remaining intact in the region now. For this period, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our reality: protection, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are perpetual experiences.

Many of my learners are now dead – minors who mentioned becoming medical professionals, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive experience malnutrition, eviction and fatigue – and yet, they still cling to the will to learn.

At times, when the online access enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They message inquiring: “Are you OK, educator?” We share short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They question if things will ever revert to standard. I state to them I have no answer.

Throughout the region, teachers, volunteers and non-profits try to teach wherever possible: in temporary structures, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to say: “Our presence continues.” And provided that we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

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