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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a real classroom. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, took my seat and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still distinctly recollect the auditory and olfactory sensations: writing residue, sharpener leftovers, joyful sounds in corridors. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the final day I went to school. That early hours, alert signals sounded through the halls. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; lessons, intermission, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

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

Now I reside with my parents, two brothers and female sibling in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi. The shelter coverings move with air currents, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the gaps of my temporary home and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they manage, expressing they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to entering the education field to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a reporter – to compose, to speak and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a young person in this region. I want to narrate our accounts of anxiety and deprivation, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When connectivity is available, I endeavor to educate myself online. On other occasions, I visit a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in such times, I feel alive. I remember who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our dwellings, schools and kin. I grieved for my uncle, his spouse, and their young ones. I forfeited my beautiful city, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the global audience, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve texts, learning environments and security. Learning is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. This region is not merely devastation; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been educating in this area for over ten years. Initially in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated multiple groups of about fourty pupils per class, hundreds of eager students enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the sort of occasion every instructor cherishes.

I always believed learning should be vibrant. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and movement. We painted maps, dramatized bygone episodes, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always filled the room as interest replaced fear. Yes, even prior to conflict, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for households fleeing the explosives. Shortly after, it was attacked and completely destroyed. There are almost no schools remaining intact in this area now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every part of our existence: protection, residences, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are constant companions.

A significant number of my students are now dead – minors who talked about becoming doctors, creatives, and teachers. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who are still here endure starvation, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the online access allows, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “How are you, instructor?” We exchange concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I don’t know.

Across Gaza, instructors, helpers and charities try to teach in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or packed refuges. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Many of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several