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'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, al-Mawasi

It has been 24 months since I entered a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at the institution I attended, occupied my place and raised my hand during my preferred subject. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in fifth grade on the seventh of October: the concluding day I entered the school building. That morning, air raid sirens sounded through the passageways. Some students wept, others gripped each other. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a routine day; instruction, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my previous existence.

Hostilities have claimed innumerable aspects. But the toughest sacrifice of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my guardians, siblings and female sibling in a packed refuge in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings sway with breezes, providing no climate control. We queue for nourishment and hydration. Electricity is a dream and personal space is absent. Aspiration appears brittle.

At darkness, I look up at the stars through the openings of my shelter and ponder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, expressing they yearn for classes and have retained their previous journals; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help local youth study, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a writer – to draft, to talk and to show the world what it represents to be a child in Gaza. I want to share our experiences of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even amid these conditions, amid fatality and debris, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself digitally. Other times, I go to a tiny space where aid workers educate us math and Arabic. The lessons are short – the energy supply stops or the attacks recommence but in these instances, I experience vitality. I recall who I was: the girl who cherished arithmetic and verse, who believed learning could change the world.

The war has taken so much; our homes, schools and families. I mourned my uncle, his wife, and their children. I said goodbye to my cherished hometown, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the international community, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Young residents merit literature, educational facilities and protection. Schooling is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. The territory is not just ruins; it is children who continue to aspire under aerial surveillance at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

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

Naglaa Weshah, forty, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in this area for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the middle of the territory. In pre-conflict times, I regularly instructed six classes of about fourty pupils per class, almost two hundred forty individuals enthusiastic about knowledge.

Educating them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still recall the gleam in a student’s eyes when a new idea clicked; the sort of occasion every educator lives for.

I always was convinced learning should be dynamic. My teaching space was a zone of play, art, and activity. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and transformed instruction into narratives.

Merriment always occupied the area as inquisitiveness substituted apprehension. Certainly, even before the war, local youth were always scared. My learning environment was a secure location but after 7 October, all was altered.

My learning center became a shelter for families escaping the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions still erect in the region now. For this period, all has been unusual. The war has shattered every facet of our existence: security, residences, educational centers, aspirations. Anxiety and sorrow are ever-present realities.

Numerous of my pupils are now lost – youth who talked about dreaming of physicians, painters, and educators. They were refused even the privilege of living. Those who are still here endure hunger, relocation and fatigue – and however, they still maintain the will to learn.

Sometimes, when the internet allows, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write inquiring: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share short messages, short lessons, minor flashes of connection amid the disorder. They ask if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I am uncertain.

Throughout Gaza, teachers, helpers and charities endeavor education wherever possible: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or packed refuges. Education has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we persist in education, we will persist.

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