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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, 12, a temporary shelter

For the past 24 months since I entered a learning environment. That long since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the sounds and smells: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My textbooks turned to ash, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the final day I went to school. That early hours, warning alarms blared through the passageways. Some children cried, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; teaching, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my former reality.

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 reside with my guardians, siblings and sister in a packed refuge in this coastal area. The tent walls move with air currents, failing to insulate. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At darkness, I look up at the celestial bodies through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my companions see the identical heavens. Some message me when they can, saying they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel guilty because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once envisioned becoming a teacher to assist Gaza’s children acquire knowledge, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a journalist – to compose, to communicate and to show the world what it represents to be a young person in Gaza. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even in this place, amid loss and destruction, our words continue.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself via the web. Sometimes, I attend a modest shelter where volunteers instruct us arithmetic and Arabic. The sessions are brief – the energy supply stops or the bombing resumes but in those moments, I sense being. I recall who I was: the student who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed knowledge could alter reality.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and kin. I lost my paternal relative, his partner, and their young ones. I forfeited my cherished hometown, Rafah, which is merely debris now. But the most painful deprivation of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I state this: keep our hopes alive. We don’t want pity, we require steps. The youth merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not optional, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is children who continue to aspire beneath the drones at darkness. It is my story and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a fractured utensil and a piece of torn paper.

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

An educator, 40, instructor in central Gaza

I have been instructing in the region for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in a different town, and now in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I typically educated several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds enthusiastic about knowledge.

Instructing them was my purpose and joy in life, and I still recall the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the kind of moment every teacher lives for.

I always believed instruction should be dynamic. My classroom was a zone of recreation, creativity, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, performed past occurrences, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Laughter always occupied the area as interest displaced anxiety. Indeed, even prior to conflict, local youth were always frightened. My learning environment was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the explosives. Not long later, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any educational facilities still erect in the region now. For two years, everything has been abnormal. The conflict has shattered every facet of our existence: safety, dwellings, learning places, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.

Many of my learners are now lost – minors who spoke of dreaming of doctors, creatives, and instructors. They were denied even the entitlement to survival. Those who remain live with hunger, relocation and exhaustion – and nevertheless, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Occasionally, when the connectivity enables, I get in touch with a small number of them. They contact inquiring: “Are you safe, educator?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of interaction amid the turmoil. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I have no answer.

All over Gaza, teachers, helpers and non-profits endeavor education wherever possible: in tents, ruined educational areas, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We persist.” And as long as we continue learning, we will persist.

A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several