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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the start-of-class signal at my former school, sat at my desk and participated actively during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted not long after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember hoping for a normal day; instruction, recess, a literary performance. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I reside with my mother and father, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The temporary partitions move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they long for education and have preserved their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once envisioned entering the education field to support Gaza’s children study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I aim for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to reveal the world what it means to be a young person in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of apprehension and need, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I attempt learning digitally. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where helpers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, learning centers and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his wife, and their children. I lost my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

To the international community, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit literature, learning environments and protection. Learning is not optional, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not merely devastation; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at evening. It is my story and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for more than a decade. First in a southern city, then in another location, and now in this refugee settlement in the central Gaza Strip. Before the war started, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in existence, 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 was convinced learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of amusement, aesthetics, and movement. We painted maps, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as curiosity substituted apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, all was altered.

My learning center became a refuge for relatives running from the aerial attacks. Soon, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in the region now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every part of our reality: safety, residences, learning places, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Numerous of my students are now lost – minors who talked about becoming physicians, artists, and teachers. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here experience starvation, displacement and weariness – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the internet permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate short messages, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the turmoil. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

All over this territory, educators, volunteers and organizations attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, damaged classrooms, or congested safe zones. Education has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And so long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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