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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, Khan Younis

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and participated actively during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, joyful sounds in corridors. But my school no longer exists; it was targeted shortly after the hostilities erupted. My textbooks turned to ash, and several classmates lost.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, alert signals screamed through the passageways. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a normal day; instruction, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We wait in line for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the stars through the holes of my shelter and question if my peers see the comparable vista. Some contact me when they manage, saying they miss school and have retained their former exercise books; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children study, even when existence was challenging. Now I hope for being a writer – to compose, to speak and to reveal the world what it means to be a minor in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even amid these conditions, amid loss and destruction, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. On other occasions, I go to a small tent where volunteers educate us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in those moments, I experience vitality. I recollect who I was: the young woman who loved numbers and poems, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the most painful deprivation of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: keep our hopes alive. Compassion isn't enough, we require steps. Young residents are entitled to literature, learning environments and security. Learning is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not just ruins; it is children who persist in hoping under aerial surveillance at darkness. 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.

'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, forty, teacher in a refugee camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated multiple groups of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Teaching them was my purpose and joy in existence, and I still recollect the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the type of instance every instructor lives for.

I always was convinced education should be full of life. My classroom was a area of recreation, art, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and converted teaching into tales.

Merriment always permeated the space as curiosity displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, children in Gaza were always afraid. My learning environment was a secure location but after that day, everything changed.

My learning center became a shelter for relatives fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are very few learning institutions still erect in Gaza now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has destroyed every part of our reality: security, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

A significant number of my learners are now dead – children who mentioned aspiring to be medical professionals, creatives, and teachers. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who remain experience starvation, relocation and exhaustion – and yet, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I hear from a few of them. They contact questioning: “How are you, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, tiny sparks of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever revert to standard. I inform them I am uncertain.

Across this territory, instructors, volunteers and organizations try to teach wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will endure.

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