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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still clearly recall the sounds and smells: chalk dust, wooden scraps, laughter echoing down the halls. But my learning place was destroyed; it was targeted soon after the war began. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the concluding day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her tone wavered. I remember longing for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I dwell alongside my parents, male relatives and female sibling in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and question if my companions see the comparable vista. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have kept their former exercise books; like relics of a vanished time. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to pursuing pedagogy to help young residents acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to speak and to reveal the world what it signifies to be a child in the Strip. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also bravery. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When there’s some internet, I try to study online. Other times, I visit a tiny space where helpers teach us math and Arabic. The instruction is limited – the energy supply stops or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I experience vitality. I remember who I was: the young woman who cherished arithmetic and verse, who was convinced knowledge could alter reality.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and families. I lost my family member, his wife, and their offspring. I lost my beloved urban area, Rafah, which is nothing but rubble now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because without it, our prospects disappear.

To the international community, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We don’t want pity, we require steps. Gaza’s children deserve books, schools and security. Learning is not optional, it is a basic right. The territory is not only destruction; it is children who still dream amid unmanned aircraft at darkness. It is my story and I will keep drafting, even if the sole items remaining is a damaged writing tool and a fragment of ripped sheet.

'Pupils inquire: "Are you alright, educator?"'.

An educator, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for a substantial period. Initially in that urban area, then in Deir al-Balah, and currently in al-Bureij camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still remember the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every educator strives for.

I always thought education should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of play, aesthetics, and movement. We created cartographic art, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always permeated the space as inquisitiveness displaced fear. Certainly, even before the war, young residents were always afraid. My classroom was a protected zone but after 7 October, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a shelter for households fleeing the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and completely destroyed. There are hardly any educational facilities remaining intact in this area now. For two years, all has been unusual. The war has broken every aspect of our existence: safety, dwellings, educational centers, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now lost – minors who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, artists, and educators. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain endure malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and nevertheless, they still cling to the thirst for knowledge.

At times, when the internet permits, I hear from a handful of them. They write questioning: “Are you OK, instructor?” We exchange brief words, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the chaos. They inquire if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I have no answer.

All over the region, teachers, volunteers and organizations endeavor education in all available spaces: in shelters, ruined educational areas, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We are still here.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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