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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

A young student, twelve, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I stepped into a learning environment. Two years since I listened to the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and answered questions during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the conflict started. My books were burned, and several classmates lost.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the concluding day I entered the school building. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our instructor sought to soothe, but even her voice trembled. I remember hoping for a ordinary day; instruction, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.

Conflict has stolen countless things. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

Now I reside with my mother and father, male relatives and sister in a packed refuge in al-Mawasi. The tent walls flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the openings of my shelter and question if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they manage, stating they miss school and have retained their old notebooks; like relics of a vanished time. I feel remorseful because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when existence was challenging. Now I dream of being a writer – to draft, to talk and to demonstrate the world what it represents to be a minor in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of fear and hunger, but also fortitude. Because even amid these conditions, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent.

When online access exists, I endeavor to educate myself online. Sometimes, I visit a small tent 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 recall who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who was convinced education could transform society.

Conflict has claimed innumerable things; our residences, educational institutions and families. I mourned my paternal relative, his partner, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beautiful city, that southern city, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we demand measures. The youth merit books, schools and protection. Schooling is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who persist in hoping beneath the drones at darkness. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if all I have left is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

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

An educator, forty, teacher in central Gaza

I have been instructing in Gaza for a substantial period. Originally in Khan Younis, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about dozens of learners, almost two hundred forty individuals keen on education.

Educating them was my purpose and joy in reality, and I still remember the twinkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher lives for.

I always was convinced instruction should be dynamic. My teaching space was a area of play, art, and movement. We designed geographical illustrations, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Laughter always permeated the space as interest replaced anxiety. Certainly, even in earlier times, children in Gaza were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after 7 October, everything changed.

My school became a shelter for relatives running from the bombs. Not long later, it was attacked and entirely ruined. There are very few learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every aspect of our lives: protection, dwellings, educational centers, hopes. Apprehension and mourning are ever-present realities.

Many of my pupils are now lost – youth who spoke of dreaming of physicians, painters, and instructors. They were refused even the right to exist. Those who are still here experience hunger, displacement and exhaustion – and however, they still maintain the thirst for knowledge.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They contact questioning: “Are you safe, instructor?” We share concise phrases, miniature instruction, small glimmers of contact amid the disorder. They inquire if things will ever go back to normal. I tell them I have no answer.

All over the region, teachers, helpers and non-profits attempt instruction in all available spaces: in shelters, damaged classrooms, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an demonstration of perseverance, a way to declare: “We are still here.” And as long as we persist in education, we will remain.

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